German far-right leader says gains in state election show her party has ‘arrived’

BERLIN (AP) — A leader of the far-right Alternative for Germany says her party is no longer a primarily eastern German phenomenon after a pair of strong state election performances in the country’s more prosperous west. She declared on Monday that “we have arrived.” The 10-year-old Alternative for Germany is at its strongest in the country’s former communist east. It hopes to emerge as the strongest party for the first time in three state elections in that region about a year from now. However, co-leader Alice Weidel said after the party made gains Sunday in the western states of Hesse and Bavaria that “AfD is no longer an eastern phenomenon, but has become a major all-German party.”