The far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party in September stunned the political establishment by winning its first-ever parliamentary vote – in the eastern state of Thuringia – and coming a close second in neighbouring Saxony.
The AfD’s platform relied on its usual discourse against asylum-seekers, multiculturalism and Islam, but also on critiques of Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s policy of unconditional support for Ukraine.
The state leaders of Saxony and Brandenburg, where AfD came in second, as well as the head of the conservatives in Thuringia, have called for a ceasefire in Ukraine, in an article expected to be published on Friday in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung newspaper.
Germany and the European Union’s diplomatic efforts so far have been “too indecisive”, they said, urging Berlin to bring Russia to the negotiating table.
