The trend becomes a breakthrough. Across the Rhine, the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party won another success on Sunday evening, electing its first full-time mayor of a municipality, a week after delighting its first canton.
Hannes Loth, 42, was elected head of Raguhn-Jessnitz, a town of some 9,000 inhabitants in the Saxony-Anhalt region in the east of the country, according to figures published on the municipality’s Facebook page. With 51.13%, this elected representative of the regional parliament of Saxony-Anhalt beat a candidate without a label.
Just a week ago, the far-right party won the presidency of a territorial community in Germany bringing together several municipalities, the equivalent of a French canton: that of Sonneberg, in the Thuringia region, also in the East of the country. “After the first canton, we now have the AfD’s first full-time mayor,” party official Christian Blex said on social media.
The AfD well established in the east of the country
A small number of German villages have already had AfD mayors in the past, but this was a voluntary role, these elected officials having another job at the same time. Similarly, a municipality in the south-west of the country of 12,000 inhabitants, Burladingen, was led between 2018 and 2020 by an elected AfD, but the latter had not been elected under the colors of the party, he had joined it in term of office.
The election comes in a context of strong growth in the polls of this anti-migrant, eurosceptic movement defending pro-Russian positions, which was created ten years ago. According to an opinion poll by the Insa institute published on Sunday by the Sunday edition of the daily Picturethe AfD is ahead at the national level with 20% of the voting intentions of the Social Democratic Party of Chancellor Olaf Scholz (19%).
In the last legislative elections of 2021, the far-right party recorded a score less than half, with 10.3% of the vote. The AfD is particularly established in the east of the country, which feels left behind.