AfD leaders demand inclusion in state coalition talks after election success

Voters want AfD taking part in government, German far-right party insists after results in Thuringia and Saxony

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Leaders of the far-right Alternative fur Deutschland have demanded that their party be included in coalition negotiations in two states where it won nearly a third of the vote in elections on Sunday, in results that have scrambled the political landscape a year before a general election.

Although the political earthquake from the elections in eastern Germany had been long foreseen, the centrist governing parties proved incapable of stopping the rise of the AfD, which came first in Thuringia state with nearly 33% of the vote and a close second in Saxony with almost 31%.