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US envoys Kushner and Witkoff visit Kyiv for first time after Putin talks

The US negotiators Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff travelled to Ukraine for the first time on Sunday for talks with Volodymyr Zelenskyy in an attempt to end the war with Russia. The Ukrainian president announced plans to widen peace discussions to include European countries in the near future, saying he wanted to do “everything to ensure that trilateral meetings take place” with Ukraine, the US and Europe. Witkoff said he was hopeful such meetings would be announced “in short order”. The British, French and German national security advisers briefly joined Sunday’s talks. Witkoff said the talks with Zelenskyy had been “very constructive and substantive”. Kushner said the conflict between Russia and Ukraine was “a long, hard and emotional war”. There were otherwise few details from the highly anticipated talks between Washington and Kyiv, which came a day after the US envoys met Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, in Moscow. Kushner and Witkoff were forced to arrive in Kyiv by train after Russia bombed the city’s two main airports on Friday. Both countries pledged to refrain from attacking each other’s capitals over the weekend to ensure the US envoys’ safe passage. Zelenskyy joked that the delegation should come more often to “protect our citizens who are in the capital”. But the president’s mood was generally sombre. He said Ukraine was “really counting on a winter package” from the US and Europe to enable it to withstand another war-torn winter. “We specifically discussed this with Steve and Jared, as well as with our European partners: air defence, energy support, and as you know we are counting on the serious use of LNG, American LNG,” he said, referring to liquefied natural gas. Zelenskyy greeted the US envoys earlier in the day in Sophia Square, in front of Kyiv’s historic cathedral. The cathedral is a few hundred metres away from the headquarters of Ukraine’s SBU intelligence agency, which was hit by a Russian drone on Friday afternoon, marking an escalation in a conflict that has dragged on for more than four and a half years. Kushner said his team was in almost daily contact with Ukrainian officials. “Just because we haven’t travelled out, it doesn’t mean we haven’t … been communicating,” he said. Expectations going into the talks were low. US-backed mediation has stalled over the past few months as Washington has been focused on the war with Iran. Many Ukrainians are also sceptical that Trump is committed to a peace agreement that is acceptable to Kyiv. “People don’t trust the Russians and people don’t trust Trump personally,” said Artem Bronzhukov, a political analyst. Talks between Russia and Ukraine on ending the war have focused on a 20-point peace plan put forward by Washington and Kyiv in December. But the two sides have failed to reach common ground on several sticking points, including control of territory in east Ukraine. “People mostly understand that if you step back from the Donbas, the next day or the next week, Putin will push for another condition,” Bronzhukov said. A White House official said on Saturday that the talks with Moscow “discussed substantive plans for next steps” for ending the war and that an announcement would follow in the coming weeks. The senior Kremlin aide Yuri Ushakov described the talks as “extremely frank” and said there was an acknowledgement of the need to address “the root causes of the conflict”. Kyiv and the surrounding areas have been hit by a barrage of daily drone strikes for more than a week, the most sustained attack on Ukraine’s capital in months. The capital is now enjoying a reprieve from strikes and air raid alerts that had become a daily occurrence, but other parts of the country are still being hit. Ukrainian authorities reported on Sunday that at least eight people were killed and 69 injured across Ukraine in the past day. Ukraine is facing a critical shortage of US-made Patriot interceptor missiles that can shoot down incoming threats. Many of the recent Russian strikes have been by new-model jet-powered drones that can reach speeds of 250mph, making them hard to intercept. Many Ukrainians are worried about the war dragging on into a fifth year and are anxious about the winter ahead. This week, Zelenskyy’s defence technology adviser, Serhii Beskrestnov, told the Guardian that the government should consider evacuating elderly people from Kyiv as Putin had ordered the Russian military to “prepare and carry out mass strikes” on Ukraine’s energy facilities. Russia and Ukraine have increased their use of long-range missiles in recent weeks in an effort to sap morale in each other’s countries. Additional reporting by Illia Dyadik

Far-right AfD wins key German state election but may fail to secure majority

The populist, far-right, anti-immigration Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) has emerged as the winner in a crucial state election in Germany, exit polls have projected, securing a historic result and more than doubling its support. The AfD now appear on the brink of becoming the first far-right party to gain power in Germany at state level since the second world war. Initial exit polls showed the party to have secured 44.4% of the vote, a larger share than predicted, and decisively larger than that of the Christian Democrats (CDU) of the chancellor, Friedrich Merz, in a contest that was being followed across the world. However, it still remains unclear as to how and whether the AfD will be able to form a government, having ruled out entering a coalition and being refused any form of cooperation by the mainstream parties. The CDU was trailing massively on around 18.4% and the far-left Die Linke was third with 9.3%, with the Social Democrats on 8.4% and the Greens on 8.7% by around early evening. The smaller BSW reached the 5% hurdle needed to re-enter parliament, against expectations. The party, an offshoot of Die Linke, has agreed to cooperate with the AfD on issues such as energy price reform. Participation was at a record high of 76.5%. Votes are still being counted, but it appeared initially that the AfD might have failed to secure an absolute majority – the condition it has said is central to it taking power, given its refusal to govern with another party. The CDU and all other mainstream parties have also refused to collude with the AfD in a government, in what is referred to as a Brandmauer, or firewall. The AfD in Saxony-Anhalt has been classed as “rightwing extremist” by Germany’s domestic intelligence agency. Addressing jubilant supporters, Ulrich Siegmund, the AfD’s lead candidate in Saxony-Anhalt, said: “We have made history in this country”. Speaking to public broadcaster ARD, he said his party was ready to ⁠reach out to ‌all powers ‌that ‌strove for political change. “We extend a hand to all ‌democratic forces that wish to pursue better policies,” a beaming Siegmund said after ⁠exit polls had been published. He said themes such as migration and domestic security were not up for debate. The CDU described its result as “bitter” but said it would not back down from its refusal to rule together with the AfD, which the far-right party has also ruled out. Franziska Hoppermann, general secretary of the CDU, called it a “defeat overall” for the Christian Democrats. “And it is also a defeat for all those who have borne responsibility in the democracy in Saxony-Anhalt over the past 35 years,” she added, in reference to the difficult post-communist era. She ruled out any discussion over Merz’s future, which analysts have suggested will increasingly become a topic of debate after his party’s defeat. In one recent poll, only 9% of voters in Saxony-Anhalt said they were satisfied with Merz’s politics. Siegmund on Sunday evening called Merz “a very good campaigner for the AfD”. Alice Weidel, the AfD’s co-leader, said the result gave her party a “clear government mandate” and that it would “talk to all the parties” to work out a strategy as to how the AfD could rule. About 1.7 million people were eligible to vote in the east-central state of 2.1 million residents. Final polls had shown the AfD to have around 40-41% of support, and the party appears to have almost doubled its 2021 result of 23.7%. The number of undecided voters in advance of the vote was much lower than at previous elections, polling showed. The small state has been governed since 2002 by Merz’s conservative CDU, together with two smaller parties. The Saxony-Anhalt election had been seen as the biggest test yet for Merz, who is very unpopular, along with his government, a coalition with the SPD. Merz has thus far failed in his promises to reset Germany’s struggling economy or stop the rise of the AfD, which has been making regular and steady gains since it entered parliament in 2017 and is now the Bundestag’s leading opposition party. Irregular immigration has reduced since Merz has been in office, but not to an extent that has appeased the average voter. In national polls, the CDU has also been overtaken by the AfD, which has its eyes on victory at the next federal elections in 2029 or 2033. If the AfD manages to form a government in Saxony-Anhalt, Siegmund has promised to immediately start a remigration and deportation offensive, ban rainbow flags in schools and halt the building of new windfarms. He wants to change the slogan of the state from “Think Modern” to “Think German”, and to reintroduce the singing of the German national anthem in schools. Siegmund also sought in the campaign to capitalise on a mood of “ostalgie”, or nostalgia for communist East Germany, and to tap into discontent among east Germans. He has made repeated references to a rise in foreigner-related crime, even as the crime rate has fallen dramatically. AfD is pro-Kremlin, urging a stop to support for Ukraine and pushing for Ukrainians to no longer receive refugee status. Siegmund turned up to vote on Sunday morning with his wife, riding an East German-era moped in the party colours, which was also a prominent prop during the election campaign in rallies across the state. In a statement in front of the polling station, he voiced his optimism that the party would achieve “45%, and some”, and saying he wanted to “build bridges”. Tensions before the election were high, with a considerable police presence and a number of demonstrations taking place across the state. Thousands of opponents of the AfD gathered in the state capital, Magdeburg, on Saturday, for a “festival of democracy”. On Saturday evening, a message beamed on to the facade of Magdeburg Cathedral read: “We do not abandon what we love. True love of the homeland is not the AfD.” The bishop of Magdeburg, Gerhard Feige, in an address to a gathering of churchgoers, warned against forces “that want to sow discord, stoke mistrust and fear”. He drew parallels with history, warning that a democracy has the potential to abolish itself. “Not everyone who votes or is elected democratically is a democrat,” he said. The German Economic Institute has warned of the far-reaching consequences for the German economy, in Saxony-Anhalt and beyond. It said the AfD’s immigration policy would be “calamitous” for the state, which has an ageing, dwindling population and is heavily dependent on foreign workers. Critics have also warned that an AfD-run state, due to the Kremlin-friendly stance of the party, could leak sensitive information to Russia. The AfD has dismissed such claims. It has said it would seek to reform the domestic intelligence service, calling it biased.

Energy secretary says US might not reach nuclear agreement with Iran

US energy secretary Chris Wright said on Sunday morning that the US may not be able to reach a nuclear agreement with Iran that would prevent the country from having nuclear weapons. Asked on ABC on Sunday morning about any sign of such a deal, as negotiations appear stalled and the US-Israel war on Iran continues, Wright said: “There may not be a nuclear agreement.” He talked about options for ending the “existential threat” of a nuclear armed Iran coming about by further US military action to knock out the country’s capacity to manufacture and deploy such missiles, saying: “It may be simply [a case of] destroying their capabilities to do it” or else “an agreement may await the next administration in Iran”. He later said on CBS that the US was not shutting down diplomatic outreach and was “always open for a deal”. Wright told that network’s Face the Nation show that the “biggest role” of the US military in the Gulf region currently was to stop Iranian energy exports. “We are strangling their economy to try to bring either a change in policy from the existing regime or a new regime,” he said. In an earlier interview with CNN on Sunday, Wright declined to declare the strait of Hormuz safe for oil tankers – unless they are being escorted by the US navy – and stopped short of saying whether the navy would need to remain in the Gulf region “indefinitely” in order to keep the vital energy passageway operating, as the conflict drags on. This came despite Donald Trump’s repeated claims that ships can safely navigate the narrow marine waterway, and the US president’s insistence last week that the US controls the strait, while floating the idea that it be named after him – statements that were followed by further strikes from both sides in the area. Wright, appearing for an interview on CNN’s State of the Union show on Sunday as well as ABC and CBS, was asked whether he could “unequivocally” assure safety to merchant ships transiting the strait. The question came after a New York Times report found that August was the deadliest month for merchant vessels in the area since March. “We’re working cooperatively with fleets that do want to transit. Some ships aren’t transiting, and, of course, that’s their choice. But the United States is working with teams from all the nations in the Gulf to get transits and to continue to ramp them up,” Wright said. “But you’re not saying that it’s currently safe?” host CNN Dana Bash asked, to which Wright replied: “We’re getting a lot of ships through, but, of course, it requires the US military to do that. We are not [at] pre-conflict levels, if that’s what you’re asking.” Bash then asked: “If a country or a company wants to send its tanker through the strait of Hormuz, can they do so safely?” “Well, if they want to work with the United States navy, I think they can,” Wright said. Bash then asked whether the US navy would remain in the region “indefinitely” and whether its presence in the strait was becoming “the new normal”. Wright responded: “Well, it is today, but I think, as you look forward, other nations will come and work with us in this endeavor. Certainly, trade for the world is important. It shouldn’t be just the United States’s responsibility.” “But until Iran changes their position or changes their government, we’ll have to deal with them. But, slowly, their capabilities are being degraded and ours are being enhanced,” he added. Nuclear and diplomatic talks between the United States and Iran appear to have stalled after a June interim agreement to end military operations collapsed without producing a lasting settlement on peace or the future of what remains of Iran’s nuclear program after US strikes last summer caused huge damage. Wright was also asked by CNN if he would say the US is still at war. “We’re still in a conflict, for sure,” he said. On Thursday, the US vice-president JD Vance said at a White House press briefing: “I wouldn’t call it a war,” instead referring to a military conflict. Trump then defended Vance, saying: “A lot of people do not call it a war, I would call it a military conflict, because it’s small potatoes for us … it’s not a big thing.” The Republican US senator John Kennedy of Louisiana was asked on Sunday by NBC if the war would be over by November. “Probably not,” he said. The conflict passed the six-month mark in late August. The former defense secretary Leon Panetta warned in an interview with the Guardian this weekend that it could last a lot longer.

Top marks for the Bayeux tapestry | Brief letters

A five-star review of the Bayeux tapestry (The Bayeux tapestry: a stupefying, thrilling, horrifying masterpiece that shakes the earth, 3 September). Even creatives from nearly a thousand years ago are subject to the modern media’s determination to rate art. Still, they will be pleased to have impressed the Guardian. Andrew Vincent Westmancote, Worcestershire • While I understand Angela Eagle’s advice to “store … a bit of food that can keep you going for a while” (Report, 3 September), I fear that this will lead to the kind of panic buying that we had during Covid, when those who can, financially and physically, will stagger out of supermarkets laden with supplies, while those of us less fortunate will find shelves stripped bare. Perhaps we need to bring back rationing? Jean Austin Crawley, West Sussex • “Do the rich behave worse than the rest of us?” asks your report (Rich people more likely to steal children’s sweets, finds Ig Nobel prize-winning study, 3 September). How do you think they got rich? John Roberts London • Interested to hear that JD Vance would not be shocked “if the antichrist was walking among us” (Report, 2 September). Has he tried looking in the Oval Office? Chris Ainsworth Rawtenstall, Lancashire • Sure signs our summer of sunshine is over today (Letters, 31 August): raincoats, calendars and diaries for 2027 on sale, charity Christmas catalogues in the post and a shop-window display of Halloween pumpkins. Valerie Gidlow Faversham, Kent • Have an opinion on anything you’ve read in the Guardian today? Please email us your letter and it will be considered for publication in our letters section.

China prepares £40bn stimulus for financial sector amid fears over sluggish growth

China will inject $54bn (£40bn) into its financial sector as Beijing attempts to shore up banks and insurers in the face of faltering economic growth. A host of financial institutions said they were due to receive billions of yuan in capital from state institutions including the ministry of finance and even the company that runs the country’s tobacco monopoly. The stimulus is designed to help China bolster the ability of its financial sector to invest in the stock market and lend to businesses, amid signs that the world’s second largest economy is struggling to escape weak growth. The country’s largest life insurer, China Life Insurance, will get 35bn yuan, while the China Taiping Insurance Group said it would receive 7bn. The People’s Insurance ⁠Company of China said it planned to raise up to 15bn yuan through a private placement of A-shares – stock that specifically allows investors to trade in China-based companies – to the ministry of finance, with the proceeds used to replenish ‌its capital. The initiative could help bolster ‌state insurers that have been directed by Beijing to support the stock market with medium- and long-term funds, while positioning them to help regulators ‌manage smaller, higher-risk insurance companies. The insurance sector has been struggling with eroding profitability owing to persistently low interest rates, with numerous small and mid-sized insurers reporting deteriorating solvency ratios, a measure of financial health. “The injection is an important step by the country to enhance the financial sector’s ability to serve the real economy and promote the high-quality ‌development of the financial and insurance industries,” China Life said, adding that it would strengthen the group’s ability to withstand risk. Separately, three state lenders on Sunday also announced they will receive a combined 290bn yuan in capital injections. The plan was first announced at an annual parliamentary meeting in March this year, extending a financing tool that had helped bolster some other big state banks last year. The Agricultural Bank of China and the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, two of the country’s largest state banks, said ⁠they planned to raise up to 160bn yuan and 100bn yuan respectively through private A-share placements to the finance ministry, China National Tobacco Corp and its subsidiaries. The two lenders said the proceeds would be used entirely to replenish cash reserves, helping them sustain credit expansion, as Beijing leans ‌on state banks to support growth despite weak demand for loans.

Volcanic eruption halts flights at Jakarta and seven other Indonesian airports

Indonesia halted operations at eight airports on Sunday, including from its main international hub, affecting hundreds of flights as a result of an ash cloud from the Anak Krakatau volcano. Saturday’s eruption, which produced lava and booming sounds that were heard up to 435 miles (700km) away, according to Indonesia’s geology agency, also interrupted some school activities and fishing. Two more eruptions were recorded on Sunday. Ash was detected in the airspace around Soekarno-Hatta international airport near Jakarta, prompting authorities to suspend operations. They announced several extensions of the shutdown, keeping the airport closed to flights until 9.30pm local time on Sunday. The suspension affected hundreds of flights, including international ones, according to the airport operator, Angkasa Pura. Singapore Airlines said it had cancelled flights to and from Jakarta for the rest of Sunday. The Australian flag carrier said there were “disruptions to a number of Qantas services, including cancellations to and from Jakarta today”. “Our meteorologists and operations teams are closely monitoring conditions in and around Jakarta and any impact on our operations,” it said in a statement. “Safety remains our highest priority. We have contacted affected customers and are providing assistance. Services will resume when conditions allow.” Volcanic ash can damage jet engines, baking on to hot internal parts and quickly wearing out turbine blades, as well as clogging fuel and air systems. It can also damage pilots’ windscreens. Ash ‌reached as high as 6,000 metres (20,000ft) ‌on the Java side of the volcano and 15,000 metres on the Sumatra side and some parts of Banten province in Java, the meteorological agency BMKG said. Several schools cancelled activities on Saturday after students and residents suffered eye irritation, and fishers cancelled fishing trips, the local media outlet Kompas reported. The disaster mitigation agency BNPB said it would conduct a weather modification operation, which could include cloud-seeding to promote rain. “If it rains heavily enough, the volcanic ash that has been disrupting our daily lives since yesterday and continuing today will be washed away quickly,” the BNPB chief, Lt Gen Suharyanto, told a press conference. More than 22,000 passengers and 209 flights were affected, the transport ministry said, particularly those bound to and from Singapore. Other affected international routes included Doha, Sydney and Kuala Lumpur. At least 16 domestic flights to Bali were cancelled, local airport authorities said. Anak Krakatau, which means “child of Krakatau”, sits in a strait that separates the islands of Java and Sumatra. The volcano has been sporadically active since it emerged from the sea in the caldera formed after the 1883 eruption of Mount Krakatau. That was one of the deadliest and most destructive volcanic eruptions in human history. About 35,000 people were killed. Port authorities said ships passing through the strait were prohibited from going within a two-mile radius of the volcano and should be vigilant. With Agence France-Presse

Iran war likely to drag on for another six months, ex-US defense secretary warns

Donald Trump’s war with Iran is likely to drag on for another six months, Leon Panetta, the former US defense secretary, has warned, as the US president struggles to find his way out of the controversial conflict. Panetta declared in an interview that the war with Iran – launched by Trump over six months ago – risks becoming another “forever war in the Middle East”, with no clear end in sight. “It’s no mystery that the United States and Iran are caught in a terrible stalemate, in which there really are very few options available to bring this war to an end,” said Panetta, who also served as CIA director under Barack Obama, suggesting the conflict is on course to become “another failed war” in the Middle East “like Iraq and Afghanistan”. “I think the likelihood is this war is going to continue for another six months without being resolved,” he added. Panetta spoke to the Guardian days after the US army secretary, Dan Driscoll, abruptly resigned, departing amid the conflict, following reports of tensions with the defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, over a series of firings. US service members “are going to war at a time when there’s tremendous turmoil at the Pentagon, in the command structure, which really creates a sense that there’s nobody in charge”, Panetta, who served as defense secretary from 2011 to 2013, added. “And I just think that, whether it’s Iran, or whether it’s our adversaries, they’re now looking at the United States, and see weakness in terms of our ability to be able to really implement our military capability of defending our country.” He said: “My biggest concern right now is we live in a very dangerous world, with the primary threats coming from China, from Russia, from North Korea, and from terrorism, and yes, from Iran as well. But what I’m concerned about is that we’re sending a message of weakness to our primary adversaries. “And while they continue to meet and support each other in this axis that’s been created, I think they look at the United States as being particularly weak right now, and that’s a horrible message to send at a time when we’re facing those kinds of threats.” In a statement, the Pentagon insisted it was “firing on all cylinders” under Hegseth’s leadership. “The premise that the Department is in disarray is completely baseless and an insult to every dedicated professional and warfighter in this building who comes to work every day to defend this nation,” the chief Pentagon spokesperson, Sean Parnell, said. “This is what reform looks like.” The White House was also contacted for comment. In March, just three weeks after the US and Israel launched their military operation in Iran, Panetta told the Guardian he believed Trump was stuck between a “rock and a hard place” as he weighed whether to expand the war in a bid to eliminate Iran’s leverage over the strait of Hormuz, or “just simply walk away and declare victory”, despite the risk of perceived failure. Earlier this week Panetta said he “absolutely” believed Trump remains in that position. “He’s boxed himself in,” he said. Trump now has three options, according to Panetta. The first would be to walk away and “admit that it’s a failed war”, something Panetta finds it difficult to see Trump doing. The second would be to draw out the current “stalemate, with periodic attacks going back and forth, tit for tat”, and both sides attempting to “avoid the startup of a more dangerous war” while refusing to either negotiate or surrender. That approach, Panetta believes, would produce “what all parties feared”: another protracted war in the Middle East. The third option, he said, would be for the US to take control of the strait of Hormuz, and remove Iran’s “most dangerous leverage point” over the US, “which is the ability … to close and disrupt” the global trade chokepoint. “So the president either steps up and does what’s necessary to open up the strait of Hormuz, or, as I said, he just continues to play … this game of pretending that somehow he’s winning a stalemate when the fact is he’s not,” Panetta said. Asked if he believed the war is “winnable” for the US, Panetta replied: “It’s only winnable if there is a dramatic change in the attitude of the United States that makes clear that the objective, the primary objective by the United States at this point in time, is to reopen the strait of Hormuz.” He also argued that Trump has damaged his credibility by repeatedly erroneously claiming that a deal to end the war is imminent, and that the strait of Hormuz is open. “So the real question is, is he going to make a decision to actually deliver?” Panetta asked. “For a lot of reasons, right now, he’s caught in the worst of every world because not only does he not have credibility, but any threats he makes are totally ignored.” Earlier this week, JD Vance told reporters that he would not describe the current military conflict with Iran as a “war”. And asked whether he expected the conflict to be over by November’s US midterm elections, the vice-president replied: “I think the reality is I don’t know the answer to that question. You would have to ask the Iranians.” Panetta told the Guardian he believes many Americans have “lost faith” in Trump’s “ability to handle this war”, pointing to recent polling that he said found that a majority of Americans believe that conflict with Iran was a mistake and are against it. He also said he hopes the Pentagon and Trump’s broader administration learn from what happened with the extremely long deployment of the USS Abraham Lincoln, which arrived in Thailand this week after a record-breaking deployment supporting US operations against Iran that lasted more than 260 days without a port visit, amid reports of deteriorating living conditions and mental health aboard. “Bottom line is, you do not deploy people endlessly into a war zone without making some kind of plans for rotation,” Panetta said. “So it’s not just that the war is going badly – I think there’s also kind of a lack of trust in our military as to whether or not they are properly supporting our men and women who are putting their lives on the line.”

Far-right AfD predicted to win big in crucial German state election

Polls have opened in the east German state of Saxony-Anhalt, where the populist, far-right, anti-immigration Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) is predicted to emerge on top in an election that could have a groundbreaking effect on Germany’s political landscape. About 1.7 million people are eligible to vote. Polling booths opened at 8am local time and will close at 6pm, when exit polls are expected to deliver an initial indication of whether the AfD has secured enough votes for an absolute majority, enabling it to govern the state. That would mark the first time the party had won a state government, and the first time since the second world war that a rightwing extremist party had gained power at regional state or parliament level in Germany. Final polls before the vote showed the AfD to have about 40-41% of support. The number of undecided voters in advance of the vote was much lower than at previous elections, polling showed. Currently, the small state is governed by the conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU) of the chancellor, Friedrich Merz, together with two smaller parties. The CDU, on about 23%, under its state prime minister, Sven Schulze, hopes to be able to construct a multiparty coalition to be able to retain power. The CDU and all other mainstream parties have refused to be in coalition with the AfD in a government, in what is referred to as a Brandmauer or firewall. The AfD in Saxony-Anhalt has been classed as “rightwing extremist” by Germany’s domestic intelligence agency. The AfD’s lead candidate is Ulrich Siegmund, 35, a former fragrance salesman with a large following on TikTok who has been celebrated like a pop star. He has insisted he will take power only if the party receives an absolute majority, and would not tolerate a coalition with another party. The Saxony-Anhalt election is the biggest test yet for Merz, who is unpopular, along with his government, after having failed in his promises to reset Germany’s struggling economy and reduce the support for the AfD. Irregular immigration has reduced since he has been in office, but not to the extent that it has appeased the average voter. If the AfD won convincingly, it would put huge pressure on Merz. In national polls, the CDU has also been overtaken by the AfD, which has its eyes on victory at the next federal election in 2029. If the AfD is elected in Saxony-Anhalt, Siegmund has promised to start a remigration and deportation offensive, ban rainbow flags in schools and halt the building of new wind farms. He wants to change the slogan of the state from “Think modern” to “Think German” and to reintroduce the singing of the national anthem in schools. Siegmund has sought to capitalise on a mood of ostalgie – nostalgia for communist East Germany – and to tap into discontent amongst east Germans who view themselves as second-class citizens to people from the west. He turned up to vote on Sunday morning with his wife, riding an East German-era moped in the party colours, which was also a prominent prop during the election campaign in rallies across the state. In a statement in front of the polling station, he voiced his optimism that the party would achieve “45%, and some”. Thousands of opponents of the AfD gathered in the state capital, Magdeburg, on Saturday for a “festival of democracy”. On Saturday evening, a message beamed onto the facade of Magdeburg Cathedral read: “We do not abandon what we love. True love of the homeland is not the AfD.” The bishop of Magdeburg, Gerhard Feige, in an address to a gathering of churchgoers, warned against forces “that want to sow discord, stoke mistrust and fear”. He drew parallels to historical developments, warning that a democracy has the potential to abolish itself. “Not everyone who votes or is elected democratically is a democrat,” he said. The German Economic Institute has warned of the far-reaching consequences for the German economy, in Saxony-Anhalt and beyond, specifically over its immigration policy, which it said would be “calamitous” for the state, which has an ageing, dwindling population and is heavily dependent on foreign workers. Critics have also warned, due to the Kremlin-friendly stance of the party, that an AfD-run state could leak sensitive information to Russia. The AfD has dismissed such claims. It has said it would seek to reform the domestic intelligence service, calling it biased. The latest poll by the public broadcaster ZDF on Thursday put the AfD on a decisive lead of 41%, with the CDU trailing on 23%, the far-left Die Linke on 11.5%, the Social Democrats on 8.5% and the Greens on 6%. Two smaller parties failed to reach the 5% hurdle needed to re-enter parliament. Independent election observers are active at polling booths amid speculation from the AfD that voter fraud has taken place, in particular in postal voting, with specific focus on a retirement home. State authorities have denied the claims.