Around 3.000 people took part in a protest today against the far-right party Alternative for Germany (AfD) in Erfurt, the capital of Thuringia province, a day before regional parliamentary elections.

The protest march, called by the Auf die Plätze alliance, passed through the city center to the main square, where the AfD - which enjoys strong support according to polls - held a rally to mark the end of the election campaign.

The AfD attracted about 1.300 supporters, city officials said. Together with the main candidate of the AfD, Björn Höcke, the president of the party at the federal level, Alice Weidel, also appeared at the rally.

After all, the AfD rallies and the rally in your countries took place 100 meters apart in the center of Erfurt. Police were on the way to keep the two groups apart.

Local police were supported by officers from the provinces of Hessen, Lower Saxony, Brandenburg and Mecklenburg-West Pomerania, the spokesman said. No major incidents were observed during the rally.

On Sunday, the new state parliament in Thuringia is due to be voted in after a heated election campaign. In Thuringia, with about 1.7 million eligible citizens, the AfD has been leading convincingly for months and according to a new ZDF poll, with 29 percent of the vote, the CDU has 23 percent.

The SPD, the party of Chancellor Olaf Scholz, is supported by six percent of voters. But the other two parties from Scholz's federal government, the Greens and the Liberal Democratic Party (FDP), appear unlikely to cross the electoral threshold in Thuringia.