CDU politician Philipp Wacker won the mayoral election in Wittstock Photo: wacker-fuer-wittstock.de
By Michael Sauerbier
Election shock in Wittstock (Brandenburg)! In the mayoral election on Sunday, 36.3 percent voted for two right-wing candidates, while only 12.3 percent voted for the SPD. The CDU candidate became the new town hall boss with 51.3 percent.
The Wittstock election had already made national headlines in advance. Reason: The convicted neo-Nazi Sandy Ludwig (42) ran for mayor in a Reich flag jacket – just a few days after his ban from voting for dangerous bodily harm had expired. The co-founder of the banned “White Wolves Terror Crew” received two years and four months in prison for this.
Nevertheless, three percent of Wittstock residents voted for the well-known neo-Nazi. Another 35% voted for AfD man Simon Karsten (58), who ran as an individual candidate. Simon led unannounced angry citizen demonstrations with the AfD district leader. Brandenburg’s Office for the Protection of the Constitution observes the AfD as a suspected right-wing extremist case and assigns 60 percent of its members to the national-ethnic Höcke wing.
Election winner Philipp Wacker (CDU, left) with Ralf-Thomas Schulz (SPD), Karsten Simon (AfD) and neo-Nazi Sandy Ludwig (both individual candidates) Photo: Björn Wagener
SPD candidate Ralf-Thomas Schulz (56) only got a meager 12.3 percent. The Wittstock lawyer quickly regretted having his photo taken with neo-Nazi Ludwig (like the other candidates). The election winner was business consultant Philipp Wacker (44, CDU/Free Voters Association). He had already suspected the AfD candidate’s voting success in the summer and said at the time: “The mood in the city is bad.”
With 51.3 percent, CDU man Wacker captured the chair of town hall leader in the first attempt. With twice the required minimum number of votes. The voter turnout was 61.2 percent. But the results of AfD candidate Ludwig show that those who say in surveys that they will vote for the right-wing party actually do so. In Brandenburg the AfD is at 32 percent.