Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán was also pleased to see the Alternative for Germany’s vote share growing.

The leading candidate, Friedrich Merz, a conservative who has adopted many of the AfD’s hard-line positions on immigration, used his closing statement of the debate to promise his voters that he would never allow the AfD into his government. Under him, he said, the firewall would hold.

Gemany's far-right AFD leader Alice Weidel enjoyed the vocal support of several international far-right figures ahead of this Sunday's legislative elections in which her party scored its

In a relationship with a woman of foreign origin, the AfD leader nonetheless assumes an anti-immigration rhetoric and unabashedly makes references to the Third Reich. This position has earned her the endorsement of Elon Musk and US Vice President JD Vance,

Alice Weidel, has vowed to "chase" the country's other parties if her party goes into opposition. The CDU/CSU centre-right bloc is leading according to initial projects, and its leader Friedrich Merz has repeatedly ruled out a coalition with the AfD.

As an openly gay politician who lives with her Sri Lanka-born partner in Switzerland, Alice Weidel was an unusual choice to many to lead Germany's far-right and anti-immigration AfD into