Berlin
CNN
—
The Alternative for Germany (AfD) has become the first far-right party to win a state election in Germany since the Nazi era, dealing a crushing blow to Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s government with only a year to go before the next federal election.
After voting closed on Sunday, the AfD was projected to become the strongest party in the eastern state of Thuringia, with 32.8% of the vote, and to come a close second in Saxony, with 30.6% of the vote.
In another worrying development for Germany’s mainstream, the fledgling Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance (BSW) – a far-left party that has questioned the country’s support for Ukraine and shares some of the AfD’s anti-immigration streak – came third in both states, despite only being founded earlier this year.
Although extremism has long been concentrated in Germany’s east, the results will be a concern for Scholz’s center-left SPD coalition, which slumped to a dismal fifth in both states. If federal elections were held now, recent polls show the AfD could become the second-largest group in the Bundestag, with the SDP trailing in third.
Scholz described the results as “bitter” and, calling on the European principle of the “cordon sanitaire,” urged mainstream parties in Thuringia and Saxony to exclude the AfD from any state governing coalitions.
“All democratic parties are now called upon to form stable governments without right-wing extremists,” Scholz said in a statement. “Our country cannot and must not get used to this. The AfD is damaging Germany. It is weakening the economy, dividing society and ruining our country’s reputation.”
Alice Weidel, co-leader of the AfD, told German radio that the results were a “requiem” for Scholz’s coalition and questioned “whether it can continue to govern at all.”
Speaking to CNN at a campaign rally in the city of Erfurt in Thuringia, where chants of “deport, deport” rang out across the room, Weidel said that Germany has become “a country without borders, where anyone can come in and we do nothing about it.”
The AfD’s solution? “The immediate expulsion of all illegal immigrants from our country. All criminals, all extremists must leave,” she said.
Founded in 2013, initially in opposition to the euro and the German-backed bailout of southern European countries during the eurozone crisis, the AfD has since coupled its rhetoric of economic grievance with a staunch opposition to immigration.