#englishnews #Bavariaelection <br /><br />News Article :-<br />Voters in Germany's largest state, Bavaria, choose a new parliament on Sunday, after a very nasty election campaign in which populist upstarts have rattled the status quo.<br /><br />The far-right AfD, tied in second place, is hoping for a big result.<br /><br />Its leaders say they are being physically attacked or threatened.<br /><br />But their opponents accuse them of twisting the truth for political gain, by playing into a narrative of victimisation.<br /><br />Either way the debate is unusually toxic.<br /><br />Days before the vote, Tino Chrupalla, the co-leader of the Alternative für Deutschland (AfD), was taken to intensive care after feeling unwell during an election rally in Bavaria.<br />The party describes it as a "physical attack" and AfD supporters on social media are convinced that Chrupalla was injected with a toxin.<br /><br />Police are investigating, but so far say they have no evidence he was poisoned.<br /><br />Mr Chrupalla is now out of hospital, but it could take another few days for the results of tests to be confirmed, during which time speculation is only growing.<br /><br />In September, the AfD's other co-leader, Alice Weidel, was taken by Swiss police from her home in Switzerland to a safe house because of security concerns. The party says there was a risk of an attack against her and her family.<br /><br />A few weeks later, she delivered a speech to a rally via video link rather than in person because, according to the AfD organisers, "she wasn't allowed out of the safe house" for her own safety.<br /><br />In fact she was on holiday abroad. On the same day as the rally, she was spotted in a beach restaurant in Mallorca with her partner.<br /><br />On the other side of the political spectrum, the Greens are hate figures for some right-wingers in Bavaria.<br /><br />At one rally last month, a large stone was thrown at Bavarian Greens co-leader Katharina Schulze. At another event she was attending, a mock-stall was placed at the entrance selling tomatoes and stones to be thrown.<br /><br />Aside from Bavaria, the wealthy western German state of Hesse is also holding parliamentary elections on Sunday, meaning that in total a quarter of German voters - some 14 million people - are eligible to vote in a crucial mid-term test for Chancellor Olaf Scholz's government.<br /><br />Bavaria was once a calm, self-satisfied region, run by the Bavarian conservative CSU almost without interruption since World War Two.<br /><br />In beer tents CSU politicians traditionally campaign in local dress as they swill drinks and proudly tout the region's remarkably successful combination of folksy traditions and high-tech economic success: Laptops and Lederhosen is the Bavarian brand.<br /><br />But that brand is taking a battering. Germany has been particularly exposed to multiple crises over the past few years, including Russia's full invasion of Ukraine.<br /><br />The country suddenly had to pivot away from reliance on Russian energy and has taken in over a million Ukrainian refugees. At the same time, the government is trying to shift its energy-intensive
