Far-right AFD suffers electoral setback after protest wave sweeps across Germany

GERMANY’S AFD suffered a narrow electoral defeat yesterday after huge protests against the far-right party swept across the country.

The vote saw a candidate from the mainstream center-right CDU win a slim victory over an AFD challenger in a run-off in eastern Thuringia for a dis- trict administrator post.

It came after more than a million people marched in recent days in cities from Hamburg to Dresden to Stuttgart in protest at the AFD, sparked by concerns over its plans for immigration.

The wave of mobilisation was triggered by a Jan 10 report by investigative outlet Correctiv, which revealed that AFD members had discussed the expulsion of immigrants and “non-assimilated citizens” at a Potsdam meeting with Right-wing extremists.

Yesterday’s vote was the first election since the report emerged.

After a first round vote in which the Afd’s Uwe Thrum topped the polls in the Saale-orla district, he earned 47.6 per cent in the deciding round against 52.4 per cent for CDU candidate Christian Herrgott.

Both the CDU and the centre-left SPD heaved a sigh of relief at the result.

The leader of the CDU’S Thuringia branch Mario Voigt thanked voters for joining hands to “beat the purported Alternative”, while his SPD counterpart Georg Maier said the large voter turnout had led to the “important result”.

The AFD had been hoping to notch up another victory after having secured its first district administrator position last June, also in Thuringia, and its first town mayor in July in neighbouring Saxony-anhalt.

Nationwide opinion polls put the AFD in second place after the conservatives, and well above the Social Democrats of Olaf Scholz, the chancellor.

A first poll since the protests showed support for the anti-immigration party has slipped by 1.5 per cent.

The far-right party still tops surveys in three eastern states which are due to hold regional elections in September, even though local branches of the party in Saxony and Thuringia – have been classified as a “confirmed” extremist organisation by Germany’s domestic intelligence agency.

The AFD also said that it has gained 1,900 new members since Jan 10.

In his regular video address released Saturday, Mr Scholz for the second week in a row urged the population to stand up against extremists.

“‘Never again’ is not only directed at the state. ‘Never again’ requires everyone’s vigilance. Our democracy is not God-given, it is man-made.

“It is strong when we support it. It needs us when it is attacked,” he said, citing the phrase associated with the lessons of the Holocaust.