BERLIN (AP) — The far-right Alternative for Germany could become the strongest party The Greens won a majority in eastern Germany for the first time in two state elections on Sunday, and a party founded only months ago by a prominent leftist is also hoping to change the situation as the national government has become deeply unpopular due to bickering.

Germany’s largest opposition party, the Conservative Party, is hoping for Alternative for Germany Saxony and Thuringia, home to around 4.1 million and 2.1 million people respectively, are in trouble. But prospects look bleak for the three parties in Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s governing coalition, whose constant power struggles are contributing to a stagnant economy and other problems that are turning off voters.

A victory for the Alternative for Germany (AfD) would be a strong signal for the party just under a year before the next national election is due. 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. Even so, its strength could make the formation of new state governments extremely difficult.

Problem in Berlin

High approval ratings for AfD and the new Sahra Wagenknecht Allianceboth of which are most strongly represented in the former communist east of Germany, were partly fuelled by dissatisfaction with the national government. Scholz’s alliance argued throughout the election campaign for the Elections to the European Parliament in June and achieved dismal results. Internal hostilities have intensified over a summer marked by disagreements over the Budget 2025.

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 the The Left of Prime Minister Bodo Ramelow 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 one that is now outperforming it.

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.

A national AfD leader, Alice Weidel, attacked both the governing parties and the CDU – which previously governed Germany Angela Merkel — for their “policy of uncontrolled mass immigration” after the Knife attack in Solingen, in which a suspected extremist from Syria is accused of killing three people.

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

Germany’s attitude towards Russia’s war in Ukraine is also an issue in these eastern states. Berlin is the second largest Weapons supplier to 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 proclaims: “Peace is everything!”

Wagenknecht also criticized the recent decision of the German government and the USA to station Long-range missiles to Germany in 2026. She has stated that her party will only join state governments that have a “clear position for diplomacy and against preparations for war”.

Who will govern with whom?

AfD secured its first mayoral and district offices Last year, however, the party did not enter a state government. In June, national co-chairman Tino Chrupalla said that “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 wants to enter into a coalition. intelligence has officially placed the AfD branches in both federal states under surveillance as “proven right-wing extremist” groups. Its chairman in Thuringia, Björn Höcke, was convicted the deliberate use of 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 kill the CDU,” he said.