The Christian Democrats have hit an all-time low in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, with the AfD making further gains. Yet the Chancellor has ruled out resigning.

Alternative für Deutschland is in the lead, according to exit polls (SPD at 35.5 per cent). Collapse for the CDU. Merz: “A disastrous result”

“The woman against the blues” and “Ready for the blue shift”: in the northern state, there is a clear division and strong scepticism towards Berlin. Amid the uncertainty, it will be the parties polling below 5 per cent that make the difference

Germany’s democratic parties should look at what has happened in Sweden and force the AfD to gradually become a more acceptable party 

“Saxony-Anhalt is almost a ‘textbook example, in one of the economically weakest federal states, of how industry acts as a bulwark of democracy’,” says the vice-president of Confindustria

The Simson Schwalbe KR51, on which Ulrich Siegmund – the AfD politician who won the election in Saxony-Anhalt – has often been seen,

Weidel, her Sri Lankan partner and her PhD in Bayreuth; the TikToker, the ‘Prussian Muslim’, the Putin nostalgist. The AfD defies old categories: perhaps simply labelling it ‘far right’ is not enough to understand its success