For the second time within a few days, the AfD has achieved a local political election victory. Saxony’s Prime Minister Kretschmer warns of a polarization like in America. A CDU district administrator expects further AfD successes.
After the recent AfD successes in local elections, Saxony’s Prime Minister Michael Kretschmer warns of growing polarization in Germany. “Something is slipping in this country,” said the CDU politician to the newspapers of the Funke media group. People are disturbed by how politics is done in Germany.
“We are on the way to a polarization that we know from America.” Energy transition, heating law, refugee policy and sanctions against Russia threatened to tear society apart. Politicians resorted to assigning blame and distancing themselves, while at the same time ignoring the central issues of the population, criticized Kretschmer. “That’s not responsible.” It must now be a matter of fact. “In Germany we have to talk to each other more again,” demanded the Saxon head of government.
Quiet criticism of the Merz course
Kretschmer is also one of the deputies of CDU party leader Friedrich Merz. Kretschmer had recently supported his course against the Greens. But now he distanced himself. “The federal government and the opposition can definitely work together in times of crisis,” said Kretschmer. But this also requires a willingness on the part of the traffic light government. “Excluding and dismissing us doesn’t get us any further,” said Kretschmer.
Merz had described the Greens as the main opponent of the Union and announced a sharper demarcation in response to the AfD survey soaring. That had caused criticism, also within the CDU.
A new state parliament will be elected in Kretschmer’s state of Saxony next year. The CDU currently governs there together with the SPD and the Greens. The AfD came first in the latest opinion polls in Saxony.
Reactions: “Disturbing” and “massively disappointing”
In Raguhn-Jeßnitz in Saxony-Anhalt, AfD politician Hannes Loth was elected the new mayor on Sunday. He prevailed in the runoff with 51.13 percent against the non-party candidate Nils Naumann. Loth is the first elected full-time AfD mayor in Germany.
After the run-off election in the city of 8,800, the state left chairmen Janina Böttger and Hendrik Lange said: “It is worrying that representatives of right-wing AfD state associations are now succeeding in taking top municipal offices.” The Greens state chairman Dennis Helmich described the result as “massively disappointing”.
CDU district administrator fears further successes
The CDU district administrator of the Anhalt-Bitterfeld district, in which Raguhn-Jeßnitz is located, warned of further successes for the AfD. “If the policy that the traffic light government is currently implementing remains the same, it will not have been the last mayor and district administrator of the AfD,” said Andy Grabner. Not only in East Germany, but also nationwide, this could be the political direction in the future, he warned. “This is not a Saxony-Anhalt phenomenon.”
Loth’s voters are by no means all right-wing extremists. “There are normal people from next door – like you and me.”
Only a week ago, Robert Stuhlmann, the first AfD district administrator in Germany, was elected in Sonneberg in southern Thuringia.