right-wing populism
Expert: Elections in the East could become the AfD’s “triumphal procession”.
Björn Höcke (l), Chairman of the AfD Thuringia and Tino Chrupalla, AfD Federal Chairman (r) congratulate Robert Stuhlmann. photo
© Martin Schutt/dpa
The AfD has conquered a top municipal office for the first time in Sonneberg, Thuringia. For many, this is a turning point. How great is the potential of right-wing populists?
After the election victory of the AfD in the Thuringian district of Sonneberg, experts expect further successes for the right-wing populist party in East Germany. “If there is no dramatic change in mood, the state elections and local elections next year could be a triumph for the AfD,” said Dresden political scientist Hans Vorländer of the German Press Agency.
In the district of Sonneberg, the AfD candidate Robert Stuhlmann won the runoff election for the office of district administrator with 52.8 percent of the votes on Sunday. His CDU competitor Jürgen Köpper only got 47.2 percent. It is the first municipal top office for the right-wing party nationwide. The support of the Left, SPD, Greens and FDP for the CDU opposition candidate Jürgen Köpper was not enough to prevent the AfD from succeeding. Next year there will be state and local elections in Thuringia, Saxony and Brandenburg as well as local elections in Saxony-Anhalt and Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania.
Vorländer said that the AfD would not govern at state level for lack of partners. However, large alliances between the other parties would be necessary in order to still get government majorities. “It is becoming increasingly difficult to do politics against the AfD or to win elections against the AfD,” said the director of the Center for Constitutional and Democracy Research at the TU Dresden.
“Fertile soil for the AfD”
As usual, the committees of the Bundestag parties are meeting today, where the election in Sonneberg could become an issue. Green party leader Ricarda Lang had taken the result as a warning to all democratic forces. AfD candidate Stuhlmann had primarily campaigned against the policy of the traffic light coalition of SPD, Greens and FDP in the federal government – with energy and refugee policy as the focus.
CDU General Secretary Mario Czaja wrote on Twitter that the elections in Sonneberg were a “bitter result for the political center”. In the end, the local election campaign was clearly overshadowed by federal political issues for which the federal government is responsible. “All democratic parties must think very carefully that this result could be reached in Sonneberg,” wrote Czaja.
FDP leader and Federal Minister of Finance Christian Lindner shared a tweet from FDP MP Reinhard Houben on Twitter “due to recent events”. In this, Houben had written that the AfD’s responsibility for government would lead to “skilled workers giving Germany a wide berth”. Lindner commented on Sunday evening with the words: “On the occasion of today’s Sunday, this retweet. Expose the matter – that’s what it’s about. And solve problems that exist objectively.”
The Thuringian SPD state chairman Georg Maier also blamed the unstable political conditions in the federal state for the outcome of the district election. There is not enough progress on many issues that concern people because the red-red-green minority government is dependent on the approval of the CDU. “We’re really going in circles sometimes,” Maier told dpa.
Political scientist Vorländer spoke of a mixture of different motives among the voters. The AfD has been deeply rooted in many regions of East Germany for years and in some cases has a potential of more than 30 percent. Many people have conservative, right-wing populist, right-wing national or even ethnic attitudes. At the moment there is dissatisfaction with the federal government. “This is fertile ground for the AfD,” said Vorländer.