The Alternative for Germany (AfD) party multiplied its vote share in regional elections last weekend, becoming a major opposition force in two east German states.

The far-right party nearly tripled its support in Saxony and almost doubled it in Brandenburg compared to the last vote five years ago, but fell short of dislodging the traditional parties that have ruled in this part of the country since German reunification in 1990.

Both Angela Merkel’s CDU and the opposition Social Democrats have pledged not to work with the AfD, but the far-right party’s national co-leader Jörg Meuthen said the results showed they could not be shut out forever.

“Opposition is not necessary garbage,” he said on Sunday. “We will be a very strong opposition against very fragile governing alliances.”

Mr Meuthen compared the AfD to the League party led by Matteo Salvini, which has quickly established itself as a national movement in Italy after beginning as a regional party in the north.

“We are going in that direction, except that here change is coming not from the north of the country but from the east,” he said.

The AfD opposes migration to Germany and has been associated with anti-Muslim campaigns, but its connection to right-wing extremism means it presents a great threat is to Jews, one German Jewish community leader said.

Josef Schuster said he was relieved that the worst case scenario — a big AfD victory — had been avoided.

But JTA quoted him as saying it would be “devastating to sit back and relax” just because the right-wing party did not gain first place.

Andreas Kalbitz, the AfD leader in Brandenburg, hailed his party’s performance and said it showed “we are here to stay”.

Mr Kalbitz was mired in controversy in the week before the election after it emerged he had attended a neo-Nazi rally in Athens 12 years ago.

His name appeared in a police report as one of 14 German citizens who attended the rally for the Patriotic Alliance, a short-lived movement formed by members of Golden Dawn.

The report, which was published by Der Spiegel, said the delegation that accompanied Mr Kalbitz draped a swastika flag over a balcony. The AfD Brandenburg leader denied he was linked to that incident and said he attended the rally out of “curiosity”.