She seemed unstoppable but the ballot boxes spoke. The German far right suffered an electoral setback on Sunday after being targeted by demonstrations on an unprecedented scale in the country against its program. The Alternative for Germany (AfD) party lost its bet to win a second cantonal presidency, during local elections in the Saale-Orla district, in the east German region of Thuringia.
Its candidate, Uwe Thrume, obtained only 47.6% of the votes in the second round of voting on Sunday, improving his first round score by barely 1.9 points, while his conservative rival benefited from a strong vote carryover to finish at 52.4%. The defeat of the AfD, which started as favorite, was achieved “thanks to the mobilization of civil society”, estimated the number two in the Thuringia region, the social democrat Georg Maier.
Large-scale mobilization
This election was a test at a time when large-scale demonstrations have been taking place for around two weeks against this party and its program deemed racist by its detractors. More than 800,000 people took to the streets throughout the weekend, notably in Hamburg and Düsseldorf, to denounce the AfD and the dangers for democracy that they believe it represents, organizers said on Sunday.
Last weekend, the number of participants was estimated at 1.4 million by the organizers. This mobilization of civil society was triggered by press revelations which created an earthquake in Germany: members of the AfD, an anti-migrant and anti-system party, discussed a mass expulsion plan at the end of last year. of the country of foreigners and “unassimilated citizens”.
Popular in polls
A poll by the Insa institute carried out in the wake of the first demonstrations recently reported a decline in voting intentions for the AfD to 21.5% compared to 23% previously. The demonstrations “have an effect”, said the director of the institute, Hermann Binkert, in the daily Bild. The fact remains that Afd remains the second most popular party in Germany in the polls behind the conservative opposition to social-democratic chancellor Olaf Scholz. It is driven by the increase in immigration and the record unpopularity of the government coalition in power.
According to the daily FAZ, between 130 and 150 new members join the far-right party every day, whose number of activists could increase from 40,000 to 60,000 members by the end of the year. “We must face the facts: the evil genie is out of the bottle,” lamented the daily newspaper this week. Die Zeit Chancellor Olaf Scholz, who until now had rather sought to minimize the growth of the party.