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Polls predict a breakthrough by the AfD in Saxony for regional elections. REUTERS / Michele Tantussi

This Saturday, August 31st is an election watch in eastern Germany with regional polls scheduled in Saxony and Brandenburg. The score of the far right party AfD should be particularly interesting, as opinion polls predict a breakthrough, especially in Saxony.

With our special correspondent in Dresden , Pascal Thibaut

In this region of eastern Germany ever since reunification, an election has been so covered. Observers welcome the mobilization and interest that should lead to greater participation; it was only 49% 5 years ago in Saxony.

But if there is mobilization, it is because we expect a high score of the extreme right party AfD, credited with about 25% in the polls. On Friday, during his end-of-campaign meeting in the region, party co-president Jörg Meuthen presented himself as the only alternative to established parties and defended the interests of East Germans against their leaders. .

In Leipzig, a few kilometers from Dresden, other parties are mobilizing, such as the CDU, the Christian Democratic Party, which has lined up on a stage in the open air a bunch of regional and national leaders to show the importance of this election in a region that the party has dominated and directed for 30 years.

Greens well placed

A stone's throw away, it was the Greens who held a rally. For them the situation is more favorable since the "star" of the party, the co-president Robert Habeck declared: " Our party has never aroused such a wait. We are the strongest force for an open society and against the far right. "

This role of the Greens, but also the defense of the climate explain the good polls. They could double their score and perhaps rule after the elections alongside the two parties that currently run the region, namely the Christian Democrats and the Social Democrats.

First, there was a massive demographic decline. The youngest, the most flexible, those who like risk, are gone. This is a negative development for society. Second factor, deindustrialisation. The first in 1945 with the reparations for the benefit of the Soviets and the second thirty years ago. Privatizations have traumatized many people. Then, compared to other Eastern countries, people here have lost their sovereignty. The West Germans we needed still occupy most positions of responsibility today. Finally, the security guaranteed by the GDR where your life was programmed from cradle to coffin has disappeared. If we did not rebel, we could lead a quiet life. After 89, people saw their existence questioned and many uncertainties emerged. The extreme right exploits these different factors and proclaims: "We organize resistance against the system, we will avenge you"

Frank Richter

theologian and SPD candidate

31/08/2019 - by Pascal Thibaut Play

► See also: Germany: 35,000 people in the streets of Dresden against the extreme right