Saxony and Thuringia are two relatively sparsely populated eastern German states with limited economic weight within the country. Both territories have fewer than five million voting inhabitants. To put this in perspective, the population of the western state of North Rhine-Westphalia, with around 18 million inhabitants, is larger than that of the five eastern states that formed the territory of the now defunct German Democratic Republic (GDR).
Despite all this, Sunday's regional elections in Saxony and Thuringia threaten to generate a political shock of such magnitude that it could seriously undermine Germany's current coalition government, made up of Social Democrats, Greens and Liberals.