Voters in Bavaria, Germany’s second-most populous state and the biggest by area, go to the polls today to elect a new state legislature. The state is currently governed by the centre-right Christian Social Union (CSU) in coalition with the Free Voters of Bavaria (FW).
The elections will be watched with interest to see how well the right-wing Eurosceptic Alternative for Germany (AfD) does. The party has been surging in recent polls and is the seconds-most popular party in the country after the CSU’s sister party, the Christian Democrats.
In the previous Bavarian election, held in 2018, the AfD was the fourth-biggest party, securing 10% of the vote and 22 seats in Bavaria’s 180-member legislature.
The election campaign leading up to the poll has been ill-tempered with leaders from both the AfD and the Greens having been threatened with violence.
Polls have shown AfD most popular in the former East Germany, where it is the most popular party according to polls, but a good showing for it in Bavaria could show its appeal is growing outside the relatively impoverished east of the country.
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