This Far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) The screen that should show its power with the votes of 14,992 voters: was sonnebergsmallest county thuringiaeast of Germany59.6% of our 48,269 citizens who have the right to vote, that is, 28,778 voted. A total of 14,992 people voted for the candidate candidate. AfD, Robert Sesselman13,419 to his only rival, the conservative Jurgen Kopper. In other words, the far right received 52.8% of the votes.
For such a thing to happen in a country of 84.4 million people should not shake the political chessboard because of the low number of voters. But this is the sign the AfD is looking for to show that the cordon it continues to defend is clean. Germany does not prevent them from displaying victory. He even rules, although strictly speaking, the one who wins the office sesselmann It’s just administrative.
For two weeks, earthquake preparations were being made. In the first round of the local elections, Sesselmann got 37% of the votes and rose to the first place. The fact that the rest of the parties united around the other finalist did not prevent his defeat. All this happened on Sunday, when media attention was focused on that small area in the southernmost part of Thuringia, on the Bavarian border.
radicalization
There were many components that came together in the elections, besides AfD 10 years after its establishment, it will take its first victory on a German soil. thuringia It is the land where the AfD is ruled by its most radical leader, Björn Höcke. After cornering so-called moderates, including ex-president Jörg Meuthen, who left the party, he imposed his line at the summit. And it achieves the best results in the country for the formation, including the eastern half, where polls have placed the AfD first in voting intent.
Thuringia is the black beast of the world. german politics In 2020, there was a threat of breaking the sanitary cordon at the regional level when Thomas Emmerich, a liberal candidate, was elected prime minister of Thuringia with the support of conservatives and far-right. The then Chancellor Angela Merkel ordered the election reversal, with successive resignations among conservatives and liberals, while Höcke enjoyed his success.
Elected position with administrative powers
“Let’s not exaggerate what happened. Thuringia’s prime minister, the left-wing Bodo Ramelow, who currently leads a minority coalition supported by the Social Democrats and the Greens, is a district councilor, an elected position with purely administrative powers,” he said. the next call came from the current leader of the party. Christian Democratic Union (CDU), right-wing Friedrich MertzContinuing Merkel’s slogan of refusing any cooperation with the United States AfD. Social Democratic Party (SPD) leader Saskia Esken acknowledged that part of the AfD’s rise was due to the weakness of his co-religionist Olaf Scholz’s trio of greens and liberals. Nationally, polls place the AfD in second place in voting intent, ahead of the social democrat Scholz, ahead of Merz’s conservatives.