thomas ferro thomas hello to you so explain to our viewers why these state elections are being so closely watched in germany right now essentially because that not only state elections whatever happens in this state elections as we've seen in previous occasions as well is interpreted unexplained at a much broader level at a federal level in other words if the conservatives for example have a very bad result in passage that will also be interpreted as big problems for the conservatives at a federal level big problem for merkel at the federal level it's also important because it is helping to reveal the trend not only in germany but also in other european countries namely that the big traditional parties the conservatives the social democrats are losing ground and that ground is precisely going to smaller parties dyck the greens not the far right that there would be for germany fragmenting the political spectrum in germany and other parts of europe as well all right so you mentioned there is this trend and indeed it seems like over the last several weeks all the opinion polls coming through show that miracles conservatives in has are set to lose quite a significant amount of support now how bad a blow is this going to be that for america's future if her city is defeated so badly that is the essential question how bad it will be for the conservatives how bad it could be for other parties as well i think the conservatives could be in a way pleased if they managed to get the best result out of all other parties that would give them the mandate to to form a regional government and they could then present that in a way as a victory although it is absolutely evident of putting to most if not all polls that they will have a worse result compared to previous results both it has said but also if you again if we compare it at the federal level if we interpret it at a federal level again another thing that could be important is how easy it could be for the conservatives to form a coalition government if they do in fact get that mandates or if it's easier for them to do so then i guess they can interpret it in a positive light. but what is for sure is that it will be a say worse for them if you compared to previous elections it has and now as we've been saying as the major parties lose support one of the parties gaining support is the far right if de thomas briefly are we looking at the unstoppable rise of this populist party in germany i wouldn't use the word unstoppable myself but what does seem evident is that they're gaining ground at the regional level as well as a federal level this would mock the sixteen several states in which the idea of the would have the presentation of the words in all states in germany they would now have a presentation if indeed they do manage to get above the five percent threshold in today's election which according to all polls seems to be the case all right our political correspondent thomas ferro many thanks indeed for breaking it all down for us. now let's turn to some of the other stories making news around the world and brazilians are voting in a run off presidential election today with far right candidate share both the noro predicted to win the sixty three year old has been criticized for making a string of sexist homophobic and racist remarks the former army captain has also repeatedly praised th