Far-right regional election win spells setback for Germany’s Scholz

BERLIN: The Alternative for Germany (AfD) was on track on Sunday (Sep 1) to become the first far-right party to win a regional election in Germany since World War Two, projections showed, but was almost certain to be excluded from power by rival parties.
The AfD was set to win 33.1 per cent of the vote in the state of Thuringia, comfortably ahead of the conservatives’ 24.3 per cent, broadcaster ZDF’s projection showed. In the neighbouring state of Saxony, the conservatives led on 31.9 per cent, around half a percentage point ahead of the AfD.
With a year to go until Germany’s national election, the results look punishing for Social Democrat Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s coalition. All three parties lost votes, with junior partners, the Greens and Free Democrats, on the cusp of missing the 5 per cent threshold needed to stay in parliament.
The campaign’s final week was overshadowed by the killing of three people at a festival in the city of Solingen in a knife attack, allegedly by an illegally resident Syrian national whom authorities had failed to deport. The anti-immigration AfD may have drawn momentum from the tragedy.