(AFP) Germany is bracing for what could be the first outright election victories for the far-right AfD party on Sunday, when voters in two states in the ex-communist east go to the polls.
Even strong vote results, coming 30 years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, would badly rattle Chancellor Angela Merkel’s fragile coalition government.
The anti-immigration Alternative for Germany has polled strongly in both Brandenburg and Saxony states, part of its eastern electoral heartland.
In Brandenburg, which surrounds Berlin, the AfD has been polling at around 21 percent, neck and neck with the governing Social Democratic Party (SPD).
Brandenburg’s SPD state premier Dietmar Woidke has voiced hope that the vote winner will not be “a party that stands for exclusion, hatred and agitation.”
