the far right is on course to claim its first major election victory in Germany since the second world war Michelle Rimer is across the story from our London Bureau Michelle good morning so we're still waiting on the official results but what do we know so far from early projections so the alternative for Germany party is expected to make historic gains in these two State elections in Germany voters went to the polls on what was there Sunday and we're still awaiting the official results they'll come through in the next few hours however we're going off exit polls at the moment and multiple that were published in German media predict that the farri right party is set to win the state election in Thia uh by around 30% of the vot is expected it's expected to receive 30% of the vote it's also projected to come a very close second by a very slim margin in the neighboring state of Saxony uh the Conservative Christian Democratic Union party is expected to win there but we're talking a number of percentage points so that could really go either way and we're waiting to see whether this could be potentially two G two wins uh for the far right party in Germany um now even if these projected results do prove to be true it's unlikely that the alternative for Germany party will receive the majority of votes that it needs to form a government outright in either of the states and opposing parties have ruled out forming a coalition with the far right so it's unlikely that it will find itself in government however this is not an insignificant uh outcome that we're projected to see here uh the states take care of of issues like education and transport and different budgets so having having a functioning Parliament is really quite important for the people that are living there and if uh the far right a party that doesn't appear to have any real links with other parties or any ability proven ability to work together with other parties if they do hold a third of the seats in Parliament then that could be a headache for whichever parties do end up forming a coalition now is rising support Michelle for the far right in Germany something we can expect to see again as the country heads towards a national election next year that's a question that uh German Chancellor Olaf scholes is quite likely asking himself right now all three of the parties in his ruling Centrist Coalition appear to uh have lost votes in these elections that's according again to the exit polls and the the projections that we're seeing right now so this is really potentially going to cause a rethink for the entire Center of German politics to look at what the issues are that are drawing voters in these elections and perhaps what they need to address as they prepare to go to their own national election in September of next year now the key uh election issues leading up to these two State elections this weekend were immigration and also funding for Ukraine the far-right party the alternative for Germany uh they were putting forward uh Storch uh limits on immigration and also a pullback on support for Ukraine so we may start to see some of the mainstream major parties in Germany start to look at those issues differently and to potentially make some alterations uh rhetoric and political discussion around immigration particularly ramped up in Germany a couple of weeks ago when police alleged Syrian Asylum Seeker uh killed three people at a German festival in a stabbing attack that really led to some increased rhetoric in discussion leading up to these elections uh the German Centrist party the current government also brought in uh a new legislation since that uh attack took place uh saying that they will Deport any criminal Afghans that have claimed Asylum or refug GES in Germany that they'll be deported back to Afghanistan that was a policy that they would were not implementing up until just a few weeks ago but it appears that even that change wasn't able to draw back some of the voters that are attracted to the alternative for Germany's staunch nationalistic approach to immigration so these are issues that we're expecting to have keep bubbling over in Germany again as they prepare to go to a federal election next year for