Land (state) elections in Saxony and Brandenburg

Much has been made by the UK (and some other) media of the rise of the AfD (Germany's equivalent of UKIP) in the two eastern Länder of the federal republic which had elections last Sunday. Two points should be made:

• The two main parties (the social democrat SDP in Brandenburg, conservative CDU in Saxony), though reduced in strength, remain in charge. Indeed, the AfD did not do quite as well as the pundits predicted;
• The Greens, in an area of Germany where they have least expectations, also increased their representation. Indeed, they were the only other party (apart from the two seats gained by a Brandenburg local party) to do so. They look like forming part of a ruling coalition in at least one of the new parliaments.

The FDP, the nearest equivalent to the Liberal Democrats in Germany, expected to do badly and were hardly reassured by a slight increase in vote share.

Detailed analysis at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_Saxony_state_election and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_Brandenburg_state_election