The far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) secured big victories in eastern states that held local elections on Sunday, according to the latest official results. In the state of Brandenburg, which surrounds the national capital Berlin, the AfD garnered the largest vote share at 25.7%. That is an increase of 9.8 percentage points compared to the election five years ago. The conservative Christian Democrats (CDU) and Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s Social Democrats (SPD) followed in second and third place. In the local polls in neighbouring Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, the AfD ousted the CDU from the top s…