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Alice Weidel and Tino Chrupalla, AfD top candidates for the federal election, during the election campaign in Görlitz
Photo:
Sebastian Kahnert / dpa
The AfD has won numerous direct mandates in the eastern federal states.
In Thuringia, AfD candidates were ahead of the first votes in four of the eight constituencies, according to the preliminary results.
In Saxony, the party is also getting at least eight direct seats - in three other constituencies the prospects are promising, even if the number has not yet been fully counted.
The AfD would have the majority of the 16 mandates in the Free State.
In the federal election four years ago, the AfD initially won three direct mandates.
The party later lost one of them when Frauke Petrys left the parliamentary group.
Massive growth for the AfD
In Thuringia, the CDU had won direct mandates in all eight constituencies four years ago, now the Christian Democrats could only defend one mandate.
Three other mandates now go to the SPD, one of them to Frank Ullrich, who clearly relegated the controversial former President of the Office for the Protection of the Constitution, Hans-Georg Maassen (CDU), to second place.
In addition to direct mandates, the AfD is also ahead in Thuringia for second votes - with 24.0 percent, ahead of the SPD (23.4) and the CDU (16.9).
The AfD also grew significantly in Saxony.
Among other things, the Federal Government Commissioner for East Germany, Marco Wanderwitz (CDU), lost his direct mandate in the constituency of Chemnitzer Umland - Erzgebirgskreis II to the AfD.
Wanderwitz had represented his constituency in the Bundestag since 2002.
AfD top candidate Tino Chrupalla was able to get 36.6 percent of the first votes in the constituency of Görlitz.
The CDU candidate followed a long way behind with 26.2 percent.
Chrupalla had already won the direct mandate in Görlitz in the 2017 federal election.
In Saxony-Anhalt, too, the AfD won the direct mandate in at least one constituency.
In Brandenburg and Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, however, according to current projections, all constituencies go to the SPD.
Nationwide, the AfD received around 10.5 percent of the second votes, according to projections from late evening.
mrc
