Press
The Höcke AfD wants to conquer district offices and town halls – and position itself for the state elections. According to interim results, this will not succeed straight away.
Erfurt – According to interim results, the AfD has little chance of winning district councils and town halls in the Thuringian district and mayoral elections at the first attempt. However, run-off elections with AfD participation are looming in several regions. The party has thus gained ground from the far right Björn Höcke There are still chances of holding top municipal offices in the Free State.
This applies, for example, to the districts of Sömmerda and Wartburgkreis, where the CDU and AfD candidates were close together after half of the voting districts had been counted. The situation was similar in the districts of Altenburger Land and Kyffhäuser, where run-off elections between incumbents and AfD candidates are possible. The local elections in Thuringia are seen as the first test of the mood, especially for the state elections on September 1st. Run-off elections are planned for June 9th – at the same time as the European elections.
After AfD success in Sonneberg: Failure in the runoff elections of the local votes
Voting took place in 13 districts on the district administrators, of which the CDU has so far provided eight. Some long-standing CDU office holders, including Germany’s longest-serving district administrators in the districts Eichsfeld and Greiz, did not run again. In the Sonneberg district, the first AfD district administrator nationwide was elected in 2023. After that, the party, which is classified as definitely right-wing extremist by the state’s Office for the Protection of the Constitution in Thuringia, failed in the runoff elections in further local votes in the Free State.
On Sunday, 1.74 million Thuringians also voted for the mayors and lord mayors of 94 cities, as well as the candidates for 17 district councils and more than 600 city and municipal councils. 16 and 17 year olds were also able to vote.
One day before the election, hundreds of people took to the streets across Thuringia to demonstrate for a cosmopolitan Thuringia and against right-wing extremism. According to police, up to 2,000 people took part in a rally in Erfurt alone on Saturday. Voter turnout was 46.2 percent by 4 p.m.
AfD still ahead in state election polls – scandals surrounding Krah and Co. put the party in trouble
In polls for the state election, the AfD is currently at 30 percent, despite losses, far ahead of the CDU with around 20 percent and the Left Party of Prime Minister Bodo Ramelow (Left) with 16 percent. Thuringia has been governed by a red-red-green coalition since 2014, but since 2020 it no longer has its own majority in the state parliament.
Recently, the AfD has been plagued by numerous scandals. The European Parliament member Maximilian Krah is involved in an espionage affair, and his research assistant, Jian G., in parliament is said to have passed on sensitive information to China. Krah’s employee is currently in custody. Bundestag member Petr Bystron, on the other hand, is accused of having accepted Russian bribes.
After another scandal involving Krah, the far-right Identity and Democracy (ID) group of the European Parliament drew a line under it. The AfD was excluded from the European Parliament group and thrown out of the alliance. (dpa/sischr)
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