The Oh, Hello and

welcome to Behind the News. My name is Doug Henwood.

This strict construction is two guests today,

though unusually both named Robert.

Robert Poushe will talk about the far rights victory in German regional elections, and Rob Larson will look at a super-rich.

Elections in two German states, Turringia and Saxony, both part of the former German Democratic Republic resulted in strong showings for

alternative for Deutschland alternative for Germany.

AFD as it's known is a far-right party with shall we say affinities with neo-Naziism.

AFD has been around for over a decade.

Its driving passion is hatred of migrants and a desire to close the borders.

It got about a third of the vote in the two states.

And a new party found that in January also had a strong showing.

It's the Bunnes-Sata-Vagan-Knecht, the BSU,

in English the Sarra-Vagan-Knecht Alliance,

named after its founder, an Easterner who emerged the rubble of its communist party. and nativism, but her father is Iranian. Herewith more is Robert Pauch, a journalist with the

German weekly newspaper, Dietzite. Pauch speaks of Hooka in the interview, that's Bjorn Hooka,

leader of the AFD in Turingia, who got in trouble a few years ago for using the phrase,

Alice for Deutschland, everything for Germany, a phrase used by Nazis that is illegal under German law.

Because he was formerly convicted of an offense for that in find, you can call him a fascist without fear of litigation.

Liable laws in Germany are tougher than ours. Okay, here's Robert Pousche.

What drove the vote for alternative in those two states?

Is it migrants alone or other factors at play as well?

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