With more than a third of the voices, the CDU remains the largest party in the important German state of North Rhine-Westphalia, while the AfD quickly runs into the SPD. Whereas the legal radical party has risen by 5 percent of the votes over the past five years, it is now with 15 percent the third largest political power in the Netherlands’ bordering on the Netherlands.
‘No disaster’
Hendrik Wüst, state president for the CDU in North Rhine-Westphalia, set a happy face and spoke of a ‘fantastic achievement’, because his party comes to about the same result as five years ago. SPD politician Bärbel Bas looked economically, but called the relapse by almost 2 percent to more than 22 percent for her party “no disaster, although we have not succeeded in stopping the decline.”
AfD on the threshold of breakthrough in North Rhine-Westphalia: “They can’t go around us anymore”
The voter has given the two largest parties a clear signal: in many municipalities it is no longer possible to escape the AfD and its spearheads – stricter immigration, hard approach to crime and less money for expensive sustainability projects. Die Grünen, five years ago still good for 20 percent and the big winner, submits a third of the votes and will put a mark on policy in significantly fewer municipalities.
From east skipped to west
The victory of the AfD underlines that the party is now being worn much wider than just in East German federal states. In the Bundestag elections in February, the AfD in the state was the third party by 16 percent of the votes. The legal radical party was the most popular in almost all East Germany states.
The steady decline of the SDP, which ran even more than 40 percent of the votes in the 1990s, continued unabated in these municipal elections. Extra painful for the socialists is that in particular in the large industrial cities of the Roer area, once undisputed strongholds of SPD, the rise of AfD is the strongest. Cities such as Duisburg and Gelsenkirchen sigh under high unemployment due to the decline of heavy industry, dirty streets and inflow of migrants, while many young people withdraw. SPD-Politics Bas’ Public Prosecution Service on Sunday evening that her party “takes the worries of the people in the Roer area seriously”, could not conceal that many voters have more confidence in the course of the AfD for solving the enormous problems.
First electoral test Merz
The municipal elections are also the first electoral test since the current federal government led by CDU Chancellor Friedrich Merz in May. The leader of the federal government already promised this summer improvement of the economic situation in the country that has been in recession for three years, but saw the number of unemployed in his country rise above three million in August. The rise of the AfD in areas where the party was small is a clear sign about the dissatisfaction among the population.
In addition to municipal councils, the inhabitants of North Rhine-Westphalia also vote for mayors, who have to get an absolute majority to be chosen. Where that fails, a decisive round will be held between numbers one and two in two weeks. That is the case in Duisburg and Gelsenkirchen, where AFD candidates will try to become the first mayors for their party.