AfD hopes to take power in Saxony-Anhalt election

The Alternative for Germany hopes to take power in the eastern state of Saxony-Anhalt in Sunday's election, a result AFP says would be a first for a far-right party in post-war Germany.

The anti-immigration and Moscow-friendly AfD is expected to perform strongly in the state, where long-running east-west divisions remain more than three decades after Germany's 1990 reunification.

Elisabeth Kaiser, the German government's commissioner for eastern Germany and a lawmaker from Thuringia, told AFP that the collapse of many state-owned enterprises after the fall of the Berlin Wall left unemployment, population loss and a lasting sense of upheaval for many East Germans.

Kaiser said wages and savings remain lower on average in the east, big business is still mostly based in the west, and eastern Germans are under-represented in politics. She also said the region has attracted some “industries of the future” and offers lower living costs, good childcare and universities in many areas.

On migration, Kaiser said East Germany was not shaped by the same post-war immigrant labour history as the west, and that resentment over asylum-seekers from countries including Syria and Afghanistan has helped the AfD's message resonate.

She also said populists use nostalgia for parts of life in the former communist German Democratic Republic, while many older voters remember security without focusing on the control and surveillance that came with it.

Kaiser said attitudes toward Russia in the east are shaped by anti-American sentiment, scepticism of the transatlantic alliance and fear rooted in the Soviet Union's former grip over eastern Europe. She warned against western German calls to cut funding transfers to the east, saying that would strengthen the victim role the AfD adopts.