The German far-right party AfD has suffered an unexpected election defeat in the Saale-Orla district elections in Thuringia (in eastern Germany). AfD candidate Uwe Thrum was expected to win the second round of voting, but that did not happen.
The CDU candidate, Christian Herrgott, received a majority (52.4 percent) of voters. During the first round, however, he only achieved 33.3 percent, compared to 45.7 percent for Thrum.
The AfD is under fire after revelations that several of its party members, including co-chairman Alice Weidel’s right-hand man, took part in a meeting in Potsdam with leaders of the Identitarian Movement and discussed plans for a mass “remigration” of foreigners from Germany. In response, there have been mass demonstrations across the country for several days against the far-right party and against racism. Hundreds of thousands of Germans took to the streets.
Defeat
The AfD’s defeat in Saale-Orla “was achieved thanks to the mobilization of the civil community,” said the number two in Thuringia, the social democrat Georg Maier.
The district elections are only a first test since the plans discussed in Potsdam were leaked. The ‘Landrat’ is elected, the highest official of the district. According to polls, the party could become the largest in the elections in the eastern states of Brandenburg, Thuringia and Saxony later this year. In national polls, AfD remains the second most popular, after the conservatives. According to the newspaper ‘Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung’, 130 to 150 new members join AfD every day.
Once again hundreds of thousands of people are demonstrating against the far right in Germany
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