According to latest opinion polls on voting intention for the regional election in Germany's Saxony - Anhalt region, the anti - immigration AfD party is on course to win the September election state in the state and is polling figures were reproduced in the election could govern alone without needing coalition partners.
"There's a real sense of optimism here in Saxony-Anhalt. It's a wonderful feeling. We want nothing more and nothing less than to make history. We're making the first AfD-led government in all of Germany a reality here in Saxony-Anhalt," the party's dynamic 35-year-old leader in the region, Ulrich Siegmund told Germany's foremost news organisation DW in an interview at the state parliament in Magdeburg.
Siegmund's branch of the AfD is one of the more controversial in Germany.
The Office for the Protection of the Constitution the state's domestic intelligence service, the AfD's regional chapter describes the party as "right-wing extremists". They argue that the party pushes a concept of citizenship based on race, which contradicts the German constitution, the Basic Law.
Siegmund dismisses the intelligence agency's classification as politically motivated. For several years now the party has been smeared with accusations of far right extremism and has even faced efforts by the rival CDU and SDP parties which rule in coalition to have it banned as a threat to democracy. Germans are not noted for their great sense of humour but even so these parties show a remakable lack of self awareness in being unable to see the irony in claiming to defend democracy by banning opposition parties.
Even now, with the smears and lawfare obviously backfiring bigtime with AfD now the most popular party, consistently topping national polling, political opponents and police chiefs are still warning that an AfD government would present risks to national security, including the sharing of classified information.
The AfD, Siegmund insists, is "committed to the rule of law."
But many political pundits are sceptical: "I assume that an AfD in government would further establish and professionalize its radicalism," Matthias Quent, from the Institute for Democratic Culture at Magdeburg-Stendal University, told DW. "Especially in Saxony-Anhalt, which has one of the most far-right state branches. There are no forces there that would want a different course."
AfD has promised to get tough on rejected asyslum seekers or migrants whose visas have expired. In contrast to current legislation, the AfD wants all people awaiting deportation to be detained.
"Under our government, individuals required to leave the country must, of course, be placed in detention pending deportation," Siegmund said.
He wants to set up a deportation task force to enforce those new rules. According to Saxony-Anhalt's Interior Ministry's figures, there are just under 5000 people in the state who are required to leave the country.
Despite the attemts to brand it extremist, the AfD's support in opinion polls has continued to grow. If the regional surveys in Saxony-Anhalt are correct, September's election could end more than two decades of conservative rule and mark a breakthrough for the AfD, which was founded as an anti-EU party in 2013, and embraced the issue of anti-immigration in 2015.
Despite the pressure to deliver results, Siegmund believes an AfD victory would be a springboard for the AfD in other regions.
"It would send the signal that a political shift is finally taking place, that we are once again pursuing policies tailored to our own state. And that would, of course, have a domino effect," Siegmund said.
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