The far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) has won Sunday's state election in Saxony-Anhalt with a record 44 percent of the vote, dealing a crushing blow to Chancellor Friedrich Merz's Christian Democrats.
Preliminary exit polls published by German public broadcasters ARD and ZDF show the AfD has captured between 44 and 44.5 percent of the vote, more than 20 points higher than its result in the last election.
Merz's Christian Democratic Union (CDU) finished a distant second with roughly 18.5 percent, a steep decline from its previous performance.
The Left party won 9 to 9.5 percent, the Greens 8.5 to 9 percent, and the Social Democratic Party (SDP) 8 to 9 percent. The Free Democratic Party (FDP), with just 2 to 2.5 percent, fell well short of the 5 percent threshold required for parliamentary representation.
The surge puts the AfD within striking distance of an outright majority. Of the state parliament's 83 seats, the party is forecast to take 39, only three seats below the 42 needed to govern alone. With several parties still hovering around the 5 percent cutoff, a redistribution of seats could yet give the AfD an absolute majority.
The outcome is all the more striking given Saxony-Anhalt's political history. The state has been led for years by the CDU, and its current government is a coalition of the CDU, SDP and FDP. The state parliament serves a five-year term.
Steffen Mau, a sociology professor at Humboldt University of Berlin, said Merz had vowed to halve the AfD's support upon taking office, but the opposite has happened.
"When Merz took office, he promised to cut the AfD's support in half, but that goal has not been achieved. On the contrary, the AfD's support has risen significantly. Other parties have not yet truly found an effective way to deal with the AfD," he said.
Germany's domestic intelligence agency, the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV), has officially classified the far-right AfD party as a confirmed right-wing extremist organization at the national level.
The CDU's defeat in one of its long-held strongholds is likely to deepen the political pressure on Merz's federal government.
Far-right AfD scores record win in German state election
China saw 3.707 million vehicles traded in for newer models in the first half of this year under the government's vehicle trade-in program, fueling a nationwide surge in scrap car disposal and resource recovery.
"For vehicles that meet the requirements, a Certificate of Scrap Motor Vehicle Recycling will be issued. Vehicle owners who scrap their old vehicles and purchase new energy vehicles can enjoy a subsidy of 12 percent of the vehicle price, with a maximum of 20,000 yuan (about 2,980 U.S. dollars). If they purchase fuel-powered vehicles, they can enjoy a subsidy of 10 percent of the vehicle price, with a maximum of 15,000 yuan," said Zhang Ying, secretary-general of the Commercial Vehicle Full Life Cycle Management Branch of the All-China Federation of Industry and Commerce Automobile Dealer Chamber.
Upon entering a dismantling plant, a scrap vehicle's identity information, including the vehicle identification number and engine number, is first verified against its registration certificate. Only after this information is confirmed can the vehicle proceed to the dismantling stage.
As professional equipment operates, a scrap vehicle is quickly taken apart piece by piece, with engines, seats, wiring harnesses, and plastic components removed and sorted into separate categories. In no time, only the vehicle frame remains.
In another workshop, compressors press the frame and other metal parts into neat square metal bales, which are then transported to steel mills to be smelted into new steel products. Meanwhile, more than a dozen types of hazardous waste, including storage batteries, waste engine oil, and coolant, are all handed over to licensed professional enterprises for recycling and disposal.
Through such meticulous dismantling, an ordinary household passenger car can yield dozens of types of industrial raw materials.
"In roughly a little over a year, we have recovered approximately 5,000 tons of scrap steel resources and about 1,000 tons of non-ferrous metals. Waste plastics, tires and rubber, and other materials have all been transferred and disposed of in compliance with regulations. It is expected that this year we should be able to increase our production capacity by 20 percent," said Ma Houlong, head of the Nanjing Chengkuang Resource Recycling Technology Company.
China's trade-in program sees 3.7 mln vehicles replaced in H1
