The right-wing populist ‘Alternative for Germany’ (AfD) appoints the mayor of a city in Germany for the first time. AfD candidate Tim Lochner won on Sunday in the second round of the mayoral elections in Pirna (Saxony) against opponents of the CDU and the Free Voters, the city announced in the evening.
Just a few days ago, the Saxon Constitution Protection Office classified the state AfD as definitively right-wing extremist.
Lochner is independent, but stood as a candidate for the AfD. According to the preliminary final result, he received approximately 38.5 percent of the votes. Behind them are Kathrin Dollinger-Knuth (CDU) with about 31.4 percent and the independent Ralf Thiele, who participated in the race for the Free Voters, with about 30.1 percent.
CDU past
Lochner and Thiele were also former CDU members. The city council reported a turnout of 53.8 percent. In the first round of voting it was relatively weak at 50.4 percent.
Lochner – a carpenter and restaurateur by trade – already dominated the first round of voting on November 26 in the city, which has about 40,000 inhabitants. He received almost 33 percent of the votes at the time, ahead of Thiele (23.2 percent) and Dolinger-Knuth (20.3 percent).
Social Democrats have no chance
The independent candidate André Liebscher (13.7) and Ralf Wätzig (SPD, supported by the Greens/almost 10 percent) did not get into the second round and supported the CDU candidate Dollinger-Knuth.
Before Pirna, AfD candidates had already won two important local political offices in Germany. In June, the AfD won a district election for the first time – with Robert Sesselmann in the Sonneberg district of Thuringia. In August this year, Hannes Loth was elected the first mayor of a municipality in Germany – in Raguhn-Jeßnitz (Saxony-Anhalt).
Source: Krone
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