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The far-right party Alternative for Germany, or AfD, was projected to win a strong victory in a regional election on Sunday, in a major blow to German Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s center-right party, the Christian Democratic Union.
Merz’s party was projected to be hit with a disastrous result in the eastern state of Saxony-Anhalt.
AfD had sought to form the country’s first far-right state government since the end of World War II in 1945, although it was not immediately clear whether it would be able to fulfill that ambition.
Ulrich Siegmund, AfD’s anti-migration candidate for governor, said that “we have written history.”
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Siegmund, 35, told public broadcaster ARD that voters had sent a message that “things cannot carry on like this,” adding that it was “also a signal toward Berlin.”
“A very good campaigner for us in this election campaign was Friedrich Merz. Every day this man is in the chancellery is one too many,” he said of Germany’s unpopular leader.
The election comes amid widespread public discontent with the national government, which has yet to convince many voters it can get the country’s sluggish economy back on track.
AfD aimed for an absolute majority in the state legislature to govern on its own and overcome the so-called firewall of mainstream parties’ refusal to work with it. But it was unclear long after polls closed whether that goal would become reality.
“AfD is a right-wing extremist party. It wants to leave the euro; that would be economic downfall … it works closely together with Russia, it wants a completely different social model,” said Franziska Hoppermann, the national general-secretary of Merz’s party. “We will not work with them.”
Achieving its first state government would be the biggest victory in the anti-migration party’s 13-year history.
Regardless of whether AfD forms its own government, the projected result is still a blow to Merz, whose center-right party has led Saxony-Anhalt for 24 years. Unlike several other European countries, modern Germany has not had a far-right or right-wing populist party leading a national, state or major-city government.
AfD is the largest opposition party in Germany’s national parliament and is strongest in the formerly communist and less prosperous east, where Saxony-Anhalt sits.
Its regional branch in Saxony-Anhalt is one of several classified as a confirmed right-wing extremist group by the domestic intelligence agency, which cites members’ disparagement of migrants from Muslim countries among other things.
The party promotes “remigration,” which pushes for the deportation of immigrants.
Siegmund has said his top priorities include “a deportation offensive” and ending incentives for people to come to Germany and “exploit our social system.” He also wants to initiate a process to pull Saxony-Anhalt from the regional public broadcaster over allegations of “disinformation.”
Germany’s 16 states have extensive powers, including overseeing security matters and running the education system.
An AfD leader in a neighboring state appealed two convictions for knowingly using a Nazi slogan.
The party has pushed back on accusations of extremism as politically motivated.
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Projections for ARD and ZDF public television, based on exit polls and partial counting, have AfD at just over 44% of the vote, more than double its showing five years ago in the region of 2.1 million people west of Berlin.
Merz’s Christian Democratic Union was significantly behind, polling 18% and losing about half its support. The Left Party, the center-left Social Democrats and Greens were seen polling around 9% each.
It was unclear whether the BSW party would reach the 5% of the vote needed to win seats. The projections put AfD at least marginally short of an absolute majority for now, but that could change.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
