German chancellor Olaf Scholz’s SPD has narrowly held off the rightwing Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) in regional elections in Brandenburg, nudging them into second place.
The close call follows two other recent elections in Germany’s eastern federal states (Länder). In Thuringia, the AfD won the highest share of the votes. In Saxony, the AfD narrowly came second to the centre-right CDU. Importantly, the regional AfD organisations in both Saxony and Thuringia, along with Saxony-Anhalt, have officially been designated as extreme right. This means that the party in these states is formally considered by Germany’s domestic security service to be a threat to the country’s democratic constitutional order.
Although the country’s proportional electoral system means that the AfD cannot form a government in any of the three states by itself, this is the first time since 1945 that an officially extremist party has won an election in Germany.
