A far-right German party whose leaders were sanctioned for making pro-Nazi comments is on the brink of victory in two state elections.
The Alternative for Germany (AfD), which is running a pro-Russia, anti-immigration campaign to secure seats in the former communist east Germany, is leading in several opinion polls and is expected to win around 30 percent of the vote on Sunday.
The party is seeking seats in Saxony and Thuringia, states with populations of about 4.1 million and 2.1 million respectively, whose residents are vocally unhappy with the incumbent Social Democrats of Germany.
Their main concerns centre on the war between Russia and Ukraine, slowing economic growth, the transition to green energy and the renewed debate on migration sparked by recent terror attacks, with the AfD focusing on the latter.
National Democrat leader Alice Weidel said Saxony's incumbent Christian Democratic Union (CDU) was to blame for a knife attack at a music festival last week that left three people dead and several injured. She said the attack, carried out by a suspected Syrian militant, was the result of the CDU's “out-of-control mass immigration policy.”
The AfD has also capitalised on growing anti-immigration sentiment in the region, with election posters in Thuringia promising “summer, sun and re-migration” and featuring an aeroplane with the “Deportation-Hansa” logo.
The party staunchly denies climate change, supports Russia's war on Ukraine and displays posters combining German and Russian flags declaring, “Peace is everything!”
Several AfD leaders were punished for allegedly supporting the Nazis.
Leading candidate Maximilian Kula was forced to withdraw from the election campaign in May after telling an Italian newspaper that members of the SS “were not all criminals.” NBC News reported.
Another Thuringia state leader, Bjorn Höcke, has been fined twice by German courts this year for using the Nazi-era slogan “All for Germany” at two AfD events in recent years.
Left-wing groups are desperately trying to steal public support from the AfD, but its approval rating is stagnating in opinion polls ahead of the election.
German Social Democrat Chancellor Olaf Scholz recently blamed the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war for his declining public approval ratings, saying that “gunsmoke from the battlefield” was obscuring his government's successes.
With post wire
