MAGDEBURG, Germany — An eastern German region voted Sunday in an election that could bring to power the first far-right state government in the nation’s post-World War II history.

Polls opened at 8:00 am local time (0600 GMT) and some 1.7 million voters have until 6:00 pm (1600 GMT) to cast their ballots, with first projections expected shortly after.

The vote for the state legislature in Saxony-Anhalt, a region of 2.1 million people west of Berlin, has gained outsized prominence because it represents the best chance yet of a governor’s post for the far-right, anti-migration Alternative for Germany, or AfD.

That would be the biggest prize in the party’s 13-year history, at a time when there’s widespread discontent with an unpopular national government that has yet to persuade voters it can get the country’s sluggish economy moving. It would be at least a symbolic blow to Chancellor Friedrich Merz, whose center-right party has led Saxony-Anhalt for 24 years.

AfD is the biggest opposition party in Germany’s national parliament and is strongest in the formerly communist and less prosperous east, where Saxony-Anhalt is located. Its candidate for governor, Ulrich Siegmund, declared that “we will write history here.”

Despite consistently strong support, though, its chances of taking power are uncertain even if it finishes well ahead of its opponents.

On Sunday, AfD hopes to win an absolute majority in the state legislature. That would overcome the so-called “firewall” of mainstream parties’ refusal to work with AfD, whose regional branch is one of several classified by the domestic intelligence agency as a proven right-wing extremist group. AfD vehemently rejects accusations of extremism.

AfD, polling at over 40 percent for months in Saxony-Anhalt, even has its sights on winning its first-ever state government, although this is far from assured.

A bid to break the ‘firewalls’

The small state is now ruled by Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s center-right Christian Democratic Union, or CDU, in coalition with two smaller parties. State premier Sven Schulze hopes to build another multiparty coalition to cling to power.

The AfD’s top candidate Siegmund — a telegenic 35-year-old who is feted like a rock star at campaign events and has a large social media following — has confidently predicted gaining an absolute majority, AFP reported.

“It was the others who erected the firewalls,” he told Bild daily. “If no........

© The Times of Israel