The cordon sanitaire was not working. The far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party has won elections in the district of Sonneberg in the south of the eastern German state of Thuringia, becoming the first German government to be subordinate to this formation.
The AfD candidate Robert Stuhlmann, himself a member of the Thuringian state parliament, won the election this Sunday with 53 percent of the votes against his only competitor in the second ballot, the Christian Democrat Jürgen Köpper. His victory comes after the other parties attempted to isolate the far-right politician. All formations, including the left, called for the election of the candidate of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU).
The fate of the district of Sonneberg, one of the smallest of the 400 districts into which Germany is administratively divided, has been under scrutiny since the AfD won the first ballot 15 days ago. The result was a shock in Thuringia, but also in Berlin. German political groups have refused to cooperate with the far-right party since its formation just over a decade ago.
The victory in Sonneberg is the latest success for a party benefiting from the wave of discontent sweeping east Germany in particular. Polls show that in the states of the former German Democratic Republic (GDR), the AfD would win federal elections with more than 30% of the vote. Disillusionment with the coalition of Social Democratic Chancellor Olaf Scholz, who governs with the Greens and the Liberals of the FDP, has increased in recent months and has left his party, the SPD, in third place nationwide for voting intentions. The CDU and the extreme Right.
The AfD has managed to capitalize on the general disenchantment with politics, the suspicion of immigration and the fear of an economic crisis. Recent controversies such as the heating bill have done a tremendous job of boosting the far-right’s voting intentions, which polls suggest would already be between 19% and 20%. The measures pushed by the Greens from Berlin, such as the replacement of old gas or diesel heating systems with other heating systems powered by renewable energies, have been the focus of public debate in recent months and led to violent campaigns against some media outlets, including the Bild tabloid, the most widely read in the country .
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Sonneberg, one of the 17 administrative districts in Thuringia – to which there are also six urban districts – will thus become the first right-wing extremist government in Germany to send a clear warning signal to Berlin: front against AfD, sanitary lockdown did not work. District administrators are responsible for a variety of policies, from transportation to school construction and maintenance to social services.
Victory in this region (county) may just be the beginning. Another state election will be held in Dahme-Spree in Brandenburg in October, with the AfD leading the polls. The state elections are also imminent in three federal states in the former communist East, Saxony, Thuringia and Brandenburg, whose residents will be voting from spring next year. Polls suggest all three could fall to the right.
Street in the center of Sonneberg (Thuringia) with an election poster of Robert Stuhlman, candidate of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD), on June 15Elena Sevillano
The far-right party is monitored by German espionage services on suspicion of threatening constitutional values, but is considered outspokenly “extremist” in the state of Thuringia and its members are controlled by the Federal Office for State Protection of the Federal Constitution (BfV). AfD boss in Thuringia is the controversial Björn Höcke, the most radical top official in the formation. He, too, is observed as a right-wing extremist who threatens the constitutional order.
The AfD was born in 2012 as a eurosceptic party in the heat of the euro crisis. With the 2015 refugee crisis it evolved into anti-immigration and with the pandemic it tried to exploit the protests against the restrictions. Since then, it has gained prominence as a rallying point for dissatisfaction with the political class. The fear of the negative effects of the Ukraine war and the energy crisis as well as the rejection of the ecological turnaround policy of the Scholz coalition did the rest. Disappointed voters have not turned to the conservative opposition, but to the AfD.
Just a few days ago, the BfV described the extreme right as the greatest threat to democracy in Germany and warned voters against supporting the AfD. The chairman of the Christian Democrats, Friedrich Merz, has repeatedly assured that his party will not agree with the AfD in either the European Parliament, the Bundestag or the state parliaments.
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