The far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) took another step in its rise by winning the election of its first full-time mayor, a week after electing the first head of a district administration in a rural region.
Hannes Loth, 42, was elected mayor of Raguhn-Jessnitz, a town of about 9,000 people in the Saxony-Anhalt region, in the east of the country, according to results published on the municipality’s Facebook page.
With 51.13% of the vote, Loth, a former farmer who was already a regional deputy for the AfD, defeated independent candidate Nils Naumann.
A week ago, the far-right party had won the presidency of the county of Sonneberg, in the eastern region of Thuringia.
“After the first province, we now have the first full-time mayor of the AfD,” fourth party member Christian Blx on social media.
Some German villages have had AfD mayors in the past, but these were voluntary positions combined with paid work.
Loth thanked his supporters for the “wonderful result” and wrote on social media that he will become mayor “out of everyone in Raguhn-Jessnitz”.
In 2019, the AfD appeared on track to take the city hall of Görlitz, in Saxony, but a “broad front” uniting conservatives and left-wing parties finally stopped the party in the second round, in an episode that won widespread coverage in the press.
The latter result comes in a context of strong growth in polls for this anti-immigration, eurosceptic party defending pro-Russian positions, founded a decade ago.
The AfD first entered the national parliament in 2017 after a vigorous campaign against migration in the wake of an influx of refugees into Europe in previous years, and has recently spoken out against German support for Ukraine.
This is evident from a poll by the Insa institute that was published by the newspaper on Sunday Imagethe AfD has 20% of the voting intentions, ahead of Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s Social Democratic Party (19%).
In the last legislature of 2021, the far-right party won 10.3% of the vote.
However, the party has gone on a rampage in recent months with the dissatisfaction of part of the German public over factors such as inflation and the green transition being driven by the ecologists in the current coalition government.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said this Sunday that the rise of the far right must be countered by “a future perspective” and the “question of respect”.
“We know the parties of the populist right in a bad mood from Finland, Sweden, Denmark, Norway, the Netherlands, Austria… questioned about his government’s responsibility for the rise of the AfD in the polls.
“It is necessary to respond with a future perspective for our country and with the issue of respect,” the social democratic chancellor declared. And he mentioned thatgiven the changes that are currently taking place, citizens must have “the assurance that there is a good future” for themselves and their grandchildren.
He also referred to the principle of respect, which means that “everyone who contributes to society” should be able to “make decisions about their life” without feeling bad or being discriminated against.
Source: DN
