BSW is also no party you can trust - very Russian-firendly and there is the risk that they might form a coalition with AFD. Bad day for Sachsen-Anhalt.

I’m ignorant of German politics. Isn’t Berlin in the same area the AFD won, surely it would be mainly left wing or centrist?

14 hours ago, Steve201 said:

I’m ignorant of German politics. Isn’t Berlin in the same area the AFD won, surely it would be mainly left wing or centrist?

Berlin itself is pretty left-wing and bohemian from what I remember of elections, as you'd expect. Greens, Die Linke and CDU won most of it in the last federal election.

This is Saxony-Anhalt, one of the states of Germany and they've just had a state election. Also part of the old East Germany and one of the most notable things about modern German politics is that what was East Germany has showed a strong preference for conservative parties. Initially Die Linke when they still had a stronger link to the old ruling party of East Germany, but these days, having shed most of the old Marxist-Leninist elements to BSW, another left wing party, Die Linke are more of a standard modern left-wing democratic socialist party.

So the rise of the AfD has been very strongly correlated with these less urban states of East Germany, so I'm not surprised their first big taking of control is in this area.