The AfD’s Robert Sesselmann was elected district administrator of Sonneberg in the federal region of Thuringia in a run-off election on Sunday, making it the first time a far-right party candidate takes a high-ranking local office in Germany.
Sesselmann achieved 52.8% of votes even though all other parties in the race, including Social Democrats, Greens, and the Left, banded together to support his opponent, the candidate of the conservative CDU.
Voters in the district did not seem to be deterred by the fact that the AfD’s regional branch in Thuringia is especially extremist to the point Germany’s national intelligence service is observing it.
The AfD’s win comes amid a surge in nationwide popularity for the party. Several recent polls saw the party overtake Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s SPD to become voters’ number two behind the conservative Union of CDU and CSU.
This rise also emboldened the party to decide to have a candidate run in the 2025 chancellorship race for the first time.
Meanwhile, the Sonneberg win for the AfD is likely not to remain a one-off in Eastern Germany, as the party is especially strong in the regions of the former GDR and even leads the polls there – a fact that could endanger the region’s economic growth, Scholz recently warned.
(Julia Dahm | EURACTIV.de)
Read more with EURACTIV
Germany revamps immigration law to attract skilled labourThe Bundestag passed groundbreaking legislation on Friday (23 June) that will revamp Germany’s migration law to tackle an acute shortage of skilled workers.
Source: euractiv.com
