Ballot being seen as referendum on Olaf Scholz’s government ahead of next autumn’s general election

The far-right Alternative für Deutschland party is hoping to come top in an election in the German state of Brandenburg on Sunday, three weeks after making historic gains in two other regions.

The AfD, which has been classified as rightwing extremist in several states by domestic intelligence agencies, is running almost neck and neck with Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s Social Democrats (SPD) in the state, a belt of urban and rural communities that surrounds the capital, Berlin.

Final polls showed the AfD to have a very slight lead on 28%, with the SPD having considerably narrowed the gap in the last days of campaigning to reach 27%. The conservative CDU was polling at 14% and the new leftist conservative Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance (BSW) at 13%.