The chancellor described the results as "bitter" and urged mainstream parties to exclude the AfD from any state governing coalitions.
has become the first far-right party to win a state election since the Nazi era, dealing a crushing blow to Chancellor Olaf Scholz's government with only a year to go before the next federal
Scholz described the results as "bitter" and, calling on the European principle of the "cordon sanitaire", urged mainstream parties in Thuringia and Saxony to exclude the AfD from any state governing coalitions. Speaking to CNN at a campaign rally in the city of Erfurt in Thuringia, where chants of "deport, deport" rang out across the room, Weidel said that Germany has become "a country without borders, where anyone can come in and we do nothing about it".Björn Höcke, the party's top candidate in Thuringia, leaves the AfD's election party. "All criminals, all extremists must leave," she said.
While the decision won her praise from Europe's more liberal mainstream, it has provided a rallying cry for extremist parties in Germany's formerly communist east, where economic growth is more anaemic and opportunities more scarce than in the richer west. From left: Friedrich Merz, CDU federal chairman and CDU/CSU parliamentary group leader in the Bundestag, Michael Kretschmer , Minister President of Saxony and Mario Voigt, CDU state chairman in Thuringia, attend the CDU committee meeting following the state elections in Saxony and Thuringia, in Berlin, Monday, September 2, 2024.
Both Lichtenfeld and Flurschutz have joined the Young Alternative , the youth wing of the AfD which has been designated by German authorities as a "confirmed extremist" organisation. The main AfD has been designated as "suspected extremist".
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