There is political chaos in Eastern Germany after the Alternative für Deutschland party AfD won a regional election and other parties refuse to work with it.

Exit polls show that the hard-right political party has become the first of its ilk to win in the nation since the second world war.

The party won 32.8% of the vote in the East German state of Thuringia, followed by the centre-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU) with 23.6%.

The Mail OnLine reports: Thuringia, a rural region and the only state currently led by the far-left Die Linke, a successor of East Germany’s ruling communist party, was one of two to hold regional elections today, ahead of national elections in 2025, with AfD nearly winning in neighbouring Saxony, a conservative stronghold that is the largest in former East Germany, as well the polls showed.

While the party is unlikely to come to power in either state, as other parties have vowed to coalesce to force the far-right out of power, the result is reflective of the party’s growing popularity.   

Bjoern Hoecke, the controversial head of the AfD in Thuringia, told the ARD broadcaster his party was the ‘people’s party in Thuringia’.

‘We need change and change will only come with the AfD,’ he said, hailing the ‘historic result’.

Hoecke is one of Germany’s most controversial far-right politicians and was fined twice this year for deliberately using a banned Nazi slogan.

Alice Weidel, the co-leader of the AfD, hailed the result as a ‘historic success’, while the party’s other co-leader, Tino Chrupalla, said the party had a ‘clear mandate for government’ in Thuringia.

Chrupalla said both states had sent the message that ‘there should be a change of politics’ and the AfD was ‘ready and willing to talk to all parties’.