‘Stark rejection’: How Germany’s far-right AfD won key election in the east

Alternative for Germany party leader Bjorn Hocke has been fined more than once for using Nazi slogans, but economic issues and traditional values are more important for many voters in eastern Germany [Ronny Hartmann/AFP]

A far-right party’s stunning win in Germany’s regional elections over the weekend highlights a deepening divide between the country’s east and west, analysts say, reflecting eastern Germans’ frustration over feeling overlooked and dismissed by their western compatriots.

On Sunday, the anti-immigrant Alternative for Germany (AfD) won elections in the eastern state of Thuringia with 32.8 percent of the vote, a first for a far-right party since World War II. It performed strongly in neighbouring Saxony too, trailing just behind the centre-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU). The three parties composing German Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s coalition – the Social Democrats, Greens and Liberals – all took a heavy beating, falling to single digits in both states.