The far-right Alternative für Deutschland party is hoping to come top in an election in the German state of Brandenburg on Sunday, three weeks after making historic gains in two other regions.
The AfD, which has been classified as rightwing extremist in several states by domestic intelligence agencies, is running almost neck and neck with Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s Social Democrats (SPD) in the state, a belt of urban and rural communities that surrounds the capital, Berlin.
