For the first time in Germany, a member of the far-right party Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) was elected mayor. In Raguhn-Jessnitz, a town in the German state of Saxony-Anhalt, the municipal elections were won by Hannes Loth, a farmer and city council member. In the runoff, he received 51.1 percent of the vote against an independent candidate, according to results released by the municipality on Sunday.
Loth is the first mayor to be elected with the AfD. In a town in southwestern Germany, another AfD member had been mayor from 2018 to 2020, but had only joined the party after being elected, during his mandate.
For several months, the party has continued to grow in the polls, after a few years in which its popularity had declined. A few days ago he had won for the first time in a local election, that for the district president of Sonnenberg, in the state of Thuringia.
There are various factors contributing to the growth of AfD, including the shortcomings of the incumbent government, which is supported by Social Democrats, Greens and Liberals, and to which AfD is making strong opposition. Consensus for AfD seems particularly high in areas of former East Germany, such as Saxony-Anhalt, where the economic and social context is more problematic and where in recent years the consensus for more institutional parties has been much reduced.