Berlin

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The far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) was on Monday (Sept 2) celebrating a landmark win in a regional vote. AfD topped the polls for the first time ever in the former East German state of Thuringia with around 33 per cent of the vote and was headed for a close second place in neighbouring Saxony.

"We are ready and willing to talk to all parties," AfD co-leader Tino Chrupalla said, warning there would be no politics without his party.

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Despite the results, the AfD would find it hard to put together a working majority in Thuringia, with other parties having repeatedly ruled out collaboration with the far-right party.

'We do not form coalitions with AfD'

The CDU only narrowly edged out the AfD with 32 per cent of the vote in Saxony and came second in Thuringia. Carsten Linnemann, the general secretary of the CDU, said that the party would not form coalitions with the AfD.

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The conservatives still hold hopes of leading the next government in Thuringia, with its lead candidate Mario Voigt appealing for a "reasonable government" in a coalition led by the CDU.

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Meanwhile, the BSW, formed earlier this year as a breakaway from the ex-communist Linke party, secured vote shares in the teens in both regional polls and is seen as a key building block in any coalition.

However, the BSW has serious differences with the more established parties.

'Results a big slap for govt, Scholz'

Speaking to the news agency AFP, Marianne Kneuer, a professor of politics at the Dresden University of Technology, said that political divisions and the complicated electoral math mean "forming a government will be difficult" after the two regional elections.

Besides delivering an "alarming" win for the AfD, the election result was a "big slap for the entire government and Olaf Scholz", Kneuer said.

Scholz urges exclusion of AfD

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz's Social Democrats recorded meek results, scoring around seven per cent in Saxony and falling to six per cent in Thuringia.

On Monday, Scholz urged mainstream parties to exclude the AfD.

"All democratic parties are now called upon to form stable governments without right-wing extremists," he said in a Facebook post, calling the results "bitter" and "worrying."

(With inputs from agencies)