Virus rages in German regions with far-right leanings

BERLIN: As Germany battles a second wave of Covid-19, a pattern has begun to emerge: Many of the hardest-hit places are those with strong support for the far right. Coincidence?

Hailed as a success story during the first wave of the pandemic, Germany is now struggling to bring the second wave under control with new daily cases regularly topping the 20,000 mark.

A record 590 deaths were recorded on Wednesday, according to the Robert Koch Institute (RKI) disease control centre.

In a sign of the seriousness of the situation, Chancellor Angela Merkel pleaded with MPs on Wednesday for tougher measures to contain the virus.

"If we have too many contacts before Christmas and it ends up being the last Christmas with the grandparents, then we'd really have failed," she said.

The picture is especially bad in many former East German states that were largely spared by the first wave in March and April.

"It is striking that the worst affected regions are those with the highest AfD vote" in 2017's general election, says Marco Wanderwitz, the government commissioner for the former East German states.

Wanderwitz himself hails from Saxony, which had the highest incidence rate in Germany at 319 on Tuesday -- well above the national average of 114.

The anti-Muslim, anti-immigration Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, which is increasingly taking aim at government measures to tame the virus, achieved its highest vote share of 27 percent in the same state three years ago.