The Alternative for Germany (AfD) party won its first major mayoral election, thereby gaining control of the eastern city of Pirna, Saxony, signalling the party’s growing popularity amid public unrest over migration.
Tim Lochner, an independent candidate, ran under the AfD banner. He won with 38.5 per cent of the vote in this city of 40,000 people, according to results announced on Sunday. Party co-leader Alice Weidel called it a “historic result”.
In June, AfD won its first district council elections, a month later in mayoral elections in a small municipality. In land elections in Hesse and Bavaria in October this year, the party was also successful in both states, winning second and third place respectively.
Lochner is committed to the AfD’s anti-migrant policies, which became a key element of its platform after more than one million migrants arrived in Germany in 2015. Lochner was previously a member of the conservative Christian Democrats (CDU) party.
On Sunday, local broadcaster MDR asked him about previous comments that referred to “population replacement,” which is the theory that migrants are used to replace the white population. He added:
“If we have a proportion of foreigners in certain parts of the city of a demonstrable 38 percent, in elementary schools and day-care centers, then for me, that’s already a replacement of the homegrown population.”
The growing support for AfD’s anti-migrant rhetoric comes at a time when “foreigners, integration and refugees” are considered the “most important issue” for the country among voters.
Although the next national election is not scheduled until 2025, Germany’s ruling coalition parties – the Social Democrats, Greens and business-friendly Free Democrats, as well as the largest opposition group, the centre-right CDU/CSU – will be anxiously watching in September as voters go to the polls in the three AfD strongholds of Saxony, Thuringia and Brandenburg.
The AfD has been riding at a high in national polls, on about 20% in recent weeks and more than 30% in some areas. Voters cite discontentment with the chancellor Olaf Scholz’s coalition government’s dealings on the economy, migration and the cost of living crisis.
