BERLIN (AP) — The far-right Alternative for Germany could become the strongest party for the first time in eastern Germany’s two state elections on Sunday, while a party founded just months ago by a prominent leftist hopes to cause unrest in the federal government, which is isolated by quarrels.

Germany’s main conservative opposition party hopes to keep the Alternative for Germany at bay in Saxony and Thuringia, which have populations of around 4.1 million and 2.1 million people respectively. But prospects are bleak for the three parties in Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s governing coalition, whose constant power struggles are contributing to a stagnating economy and other problems that are turning off voters.

A victory for the Alternative for Germany (AfD) would send a strong signal for the party just under a year before the next federal elections. But it would most likely need a coalition partner to govern, and it is highly unlikely that anyone else would agree to put it in power. Nevertheless, its strength could make the formation of new state governments extremely difficult.

Problem in Berlin

The high approval ratings of the AfD and Sahra Wagenknecht’s new coalition, both of which have the strongest presence in Germany’s formerly communist east, are partly due to dissatisfaction with the federal government. Scholz’s coalition squabbled throughout the campaign for the European elections in June, achieving dismal results. Internal hostilities have intensified over a summer marked by disagreements over the 2025 budget.

Scholz’s centre-left Social Democrats, the environmental Greens and the pro-business Free Democrats were weak from the start in these two states, even though the former two parties are the junior partners in both outgoing regional governments. Now they are in danger of falling below the 5% vote needed to remain in the state parliaments.

Scholz recently said that the “pulse smoke from the battlefield” was overshadowing the successes of his government of inconvenient allies, which had set out to modernize Germany. Justice Minister Marco Buschmann said the government was not a “self-help group.” One of the Greens’ federal leaders, Omid Nouripour, described the coalition as a “transitional government.”

The CDU, the largest opposition party, won the European elections. It has been in the lead in Saxony since German reunification in 1990 and is hoping that Prime Minister Michael Kretschmer can once again overtake the AfD, as he did five years ago. In Thuringia, polls show it is behind the AfD, but it hopes to cobble together a governing coalition.

Thuringia’s politics are particularly complicated because Prime Minister Bodo Ramelow’s Left Party has slipped into insignificance at the national level. Wagenknecht, long one of its best-known figures, left the party last year to found a new party that has now outstripped the Left Party.

Migration, war and peace

The AfD is taking advantage of the strong anti-immigration sentiment in the region. An election poster in Thuringia promises “summer, sun, return migration” and shows an airplane with the “Deportation-Hansa” logo.

The AfD’s federal chairwoman, Alice Weidel, attacked both the governing parties and the CDU – which previously led the German government under Angela Merkel – for their “policy of uncontrolled mass immigration”. Previously, there had been a knife attack in Solingen in which a suspected extremist from Syria is said to have killed three people.

Wagenknecht’s new party, known by its German acronym BSW, combines left-wing economic policy with a migration-skeptical agenda. The CDU has also increased pressure on the federal government to take a tougher stance on the migration issue.

Germany’s attitude towards Russia’s war in Ukraine is also an issue in these eastern states. Berlin is the second largest arms supplier to Ukraine after the USA. These arms deliveries are rejected by both the AfD and the BSW. An AfD poster with the combination of the German and Russian flags reads: “Peace is everything!”

Wagenknecht also criticized the recent decision of the German and American governments to begin stationing long-range missiles in Germany from 2026. She said her party would only join state governments that had a “clear position for diplomacy and against preparations for war.”

Who will govern with whom?

The AfD secured its first mayoral posts and offices in the district administration last year, but has not yet joined a state government. In June, federal chairman Tino Chrupalla said: “The sun of government responsibility must rise for us in the East.”

In Saxony and Thuringia, it does not look like this will happen, as no other party there wants to form a coalition with the AfD. The Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution is officially monitoring the AfD local branches in both states as “proven right-wing extremist” groups. The chairman of the AfD in Thuringia, Björn Höcke, was convicted of deliberately using a Nazi slogan at political events, but is appealing.

Depending on how poorly the governing parties perform at the federal level, the CDU could look for unlikely coalition partners. The party has long refused to form a coalition with Ramelow’s Left Party, which emerged from the communist party of East Germany, but has not ruled out working with Wagenknecht’s BSW.

CDU federal chairman Friedrich Merz told the RND newspaper group that “we cannot work together” with the AfD.

“That would destroy the CDU,” he said.