By Riham Alkousaa and Sarah Marsh BERLIN (Reuters) -German Chancellor Olaf Scholz's Social Democrats (SPD) looked set to fend off the far-right in a state election in Brandenburg on Sunday after trailing behind the Alternative for Germany (AfD) throughout the campaign,

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz's Social Democrats narrowly beat the far-right AfD in a state election Sunday in the formerly communist east, a rare bit of good news for his party. The AfD, which rails against asylum-seekers,

Brandenburg is a longstanding stronghold for the party. But it is located in Germany’s relatively impoverished east, where the anti-immigrant A f D performs far better than in the west. That made this election a test of whether the SPD could beat the populists on its home ground.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz's Social Democrats (SPD) looked set to fend off the far-right in a state election in Brandenburg on Sunday after trailing behind the Alternative for Germany (AfD) throughout the campaign,

Germany looks set to narrowly avoid having a far-right party as the strongest force in a second state on Sunday, just weeks the anti-migrant Alternative for Germany (AfD) became the first far-right party in post-war history to win an election.

Germans in the state of Brandenburg were voting in a regional election on Sunday with the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) expected to finish first, building on successes in other eastern states and beating Chancellor Olaf Scholz's Social Democrats in one of their traditional strongholds.

The premier of the eastern German state of Brandenburg, Dietmar Woidke, has described the performance of his centre-left Social Democrats (SPD) in Sunday's state elections as a great success. "We have made up ground like never before in the history of our state,