By Javier VILLAMOR
Five years of political isolation, institutional pressure, and debate over banning the party have failed to halt the AfD, which rose from 20.8% to 43.8% in Sunday's election.
Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) has won the Saxony-Anhalt election decisively, bringing a party that has spent years behind the Brandmauer, Germany's political firewall, to within just three seats of governing a federal state alone for the first time.