Dresden (Germany) (AFP)

Thousands of civil society activists are protesting racism on Saturday in Dresden, Saxony, the stronghold of the German far right, to a week of long-awaited elections in this region of the former GDR.

Under the motto "Solidarity instead of rejection: for an open and free society", a great melting pot of protesters from all sides, NGOs, artists, trade unionists, political leaders united in the alliance #Unteilbar (indivisible in French) will march from 12:00 GMT in the heart of this baroque city, one of the most tourist of the east.

The organizers are expecting at least 10,000 participants for the event which is to mark the culmination of a series of actions against racism and exclusion that they say are being carried out by the far right.

The context is tense, as polls predict a new electoral success for the anti-migrants party Alternative for Germany (AfD) to the polls of 1 September in Saxony and the neighboring state of Brandenburg.

According to the latest surveys, he is in second position in his Saxon stronghold, behind the Angela Merkel conservatives in power in this state since 1990. But with a score around 24%, more than doubled compared to 2014 when he made his entry into the regional Parliament.

In parallel with the demonstration in Dresden, the party's president, Alexander Gauland, will be speaking on the same day in Chemnitz during the main election rally of his party before the election.

In Brandenburg, the AfD is on a par with the Social Democrats, who have also been in power since reunification.

A victory in one or the other region would be a first for this party, born in 2013.

- "The hour of truth" -

These elections, to which will be added that of Thuringia at the end of October, will be "the hour of truth for democracy", say the organizers, brandishing the specter of a participation of the AfD to a regional government, which will have to be formed by a coalition.

This perspective is, however, categorically rejected by all other parties.

In Dresden, the cradle of the Islamophobic Pegida movement, "we want to show that there are more people on the side of solidarity than on the side of hatred," the organizers say.

In October 2018, the collective #Unteilbar caused a sensation by gathering nearly a quarter of a million people in Berlin to defend a socially responsible society, a few months after the xenophobic slippage following the alleged murder of a German by migrants in Chemnitz, again in Saxony.

Entering the Chamber of Deputies after the 2017 parliamentary elections, the AfD built its success by surfing on the concerns of the Germans after the influx of more than one million refugees mainly from Syria or Afghanistan in 2015 and 2016.

Since then, any news item involving a migrant is a pretext to criticize Angela Merkel's migration policy.

- Brain teaser -

His rhetoric goes particularly well in the former Communist GDR, neglected by much of his youth and economically poorer.

In some parts of Saxony, such as in Saxon Switzerland, a hiker's paradise where foreigners are mostly tourists, more than 35% of voters voted for the party.

An AfD victory is likely to scare investors, jeopardizing its current economic expansion, said recently the head of the government of Saxony Michael Kretschmer.

At the regional level, a real headache is emerging in all cases for the formation of government coalitions, especially as the green wave also seems to reach the east: the ecologist party, traditionally weak, is credited with a result around 10%.

The new electoral slam threatening the parties in power, after the European elections in May, may also weaken a little more the grand coalition of the Chancellor, who governs with a SPD in a rout and in which the calls to leave the government are multiplying.

© 2019 AFP