The extreme-right and overtly neo-Nazi National Democratic Party (NPD) has won representation on every county council in the eastern German state of Saxony. During Saxony's municipal election, the NPD received around 160,000 votes from across the state, a 400 per cent increase from the 2004 local elections. In two counties, the NPD came in ahead of the Social Democrats - nationwide one of the two largest parties in Germany but weak in Saxony. The NPD currently holds eight seats in Saxony's state legislature. Other far-right parties also hold seats in the state parliaments of Brandenburg and in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, both in eastern Germany. NPD leaders regularly deny, or play down, the Holocaust and openly glorify the Nazis' policies. Attempts to get the NPD declared an illegal organization by the Constitutional Court failed some years ago.
