now the polls have opened in two eastern states of Germany in elections which the far right is expected to perform strongly thousands of demonstrators took part in rallies in Saxony and Thia on Saturday the anti-immigrant alternative for Germany party or afd is expected to do well in the election in the city of airort protesters denounced the afd as fascists police say around 2,000 people attended anti-ar right rallies in Dresden at an afd rally one of the party leaders told supporters that Germany needed controlled borders and the expulsion of ilal immigrants it's thought the party could emerge as the largest in theia the vote our Europe correspondent Jess Parker has more these are Regional not national elections nevertheless they could be seismic here in thinda the far right alternative for deuts land has been leading the polls and running a close second in na in Saxony however because many view the party is extremist something they reject they may struggle to find Coalition Partners in order to actually take power the man who heads up the afd here in theing is a highly controversial figure called bjor hooker he's a Talisman of the party's hard right and has twice been fined this year for knowingly using a Nazi slogan something he denied this vote may also deliver a major repudiation of the government in Berlin under Chancellor Olaf Schultz and his traffic light Coalition it's a litmus test here in the country's East a year ahead of the federal elections our correspondent Jessica Parker there well let's cross live to Berlin to speak to Marcus Zena who's a senior visiting fellow for the German Marshall fund think tank thank you so much for joining us Marcus first of all why do you think there has been this uh shift by voters towards the far right well thanks for having me um I think there is a couple of things in play here the one is uh of course as mentioned earlier the migration problem the migration topic many people in the East feel that we have too many migrants and uh uh this actually happened under the rule of Angela Merkel when she was Chancellor we had a big wave of migrants coming to Germany and this is what the afd the far right party is capitalizing on to say well we have too many this is the one topic the other topic is um a certain sentiment of feeling like being left behind being underprivileged and not having the same um wealth situation being not as well off as in the western part so this is also something two parties the afd was mentioned but also there is another party at play which has been formed only half a year ago it's called BT SAR wagen Alliance SAR wagen and this party also is trying to um well take advantage of some kind of uh East German identity and saying well we are the real representatives of um East Germans and uh Marcus while we're speaking viewers are seeing uh live images from a polling booth in thuringia or turingan if you fancy the German uh more German pronunciation uh but what do you think uh Olaf schulz's party has failed to do in order to capture these voters or do you think these are voters who would uh Express their vote as a protest either way regardless of what Mr Schultz's party could do I I think the letter is true that um no matter what ola Schultz is doing it's not going to give him some more credit I as mentioned earlier I mean it's it's the one thing is migration the other thing which I didn't mention was Russia and some kind of um well um certain sympathy for for the Russians which is interesting here because um East Germany suffered under the oppression by the Soviet Union for so many decades however uh this is something probably in the west uh we see that as as as a as a fact however many people in the eastern part of Germany they don't see that like they have been living under a dictatorship at least they don't think they were so badly off when they when they when they lived at that time so in hindsight there is some kind of nostalgia in play now what does this have to do with the Regent elections both the afd and the BSW they're both asking for a stop of sending weapons to Ukraine they believe that the west and NATO they have a certain responsibility and that they should not prolong the war by sending weapons to Ukraine so interestingly um although there are Regional elections the topics of migration and um and and the foreign policy issue of Ukraine are high on the priority list and uh could become decisive uh topics for voters to vote for the far right in the BSW we shall see thank you marus Cena thank you for your time