Far-right win in state polls shakes Germany's coalition govt

BERLIN, Sept 02 (Reuters/BBC): German state elections that dealt a heavy blow to the parties in Chancellor Olaf Scholz's government and historic wins for two anti-establishment parties are likely to aggravate instability in an already fractious ruling coalition.

With only a year to go before a national election in Europe's largest economy, Sunday's results look set to increase the pressure on Scholz to be tougher on immigration and intensify the debate over support for Ukraine as issues that dominated campaigning.

The German government's faltering authority could also complicate European policy when the bloc's other major power neighbouring France is still struggling to form a government after snap elections in June and July.

The German chancellor, Olaf Scholz, has urged mainstream parties not to lend support to the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, which won a big victory in the eastern state of Thuringia in Sunday's regional election.

The result gives the far right its first win in a state parliament election since World War Two. The AfD also came a close second in Sunday's other big state election, in the more populous neighbouring state of Saxony.

The AfD has been designated as right-wing extremist in both Thuringia and Saxony. Björn Höcke, the AfD leader in Thuringia, has previously been fined for using a Nazi slogan, although he denies knowingly doing so.

On Monday, Mr Scholz urged other parties to block the AfD from governing by maintaining a so-called firewall against it. "All democratic parties are now called upon to form stable governments without right-wing extremists," he said, calling the results "bitter" and "worrying".

AfD co-leader Alice Weidel said that voters in Thuringia and Saxony had given her party a "very clear mandate to govern".

She urged parties to ignore Mr Scholz's call to build government coalitions without the AfD, and said that doing so would "undermine the democratic participation of large sections of the population".

All three parties in the federal government looked to have lost votes in the elections in Thuringia and Saxony, according to early projections, which underscored the demise of Scholz's Social Democrats (SPD) as a big-tent party. The projections by pollster Forschungsgruppe Wahlen published at 9 p.m. (1900 GMT) put it on just 6-7.6% of the vote.

Junior coalition partners, the Greens and pro-business Free Democrats, were at risk of being evicted from the Thuringia state parliament for failing to meet the 5% threshold.