AfD cheers, CDU and independent voters insult each other

It's another success for the AfD: its candidate wins the Pirna mayoral election. The party feels strengthened for next year's state elections. The Left and the Greens are particularly concerned. And the CDU and Free Voters blame each other for the result.

Following the victory of its candidate in the mayoral election in Pirna, the AfD is heading into the 2024 election year with confidence. "We want to win here in Saxony, we want to win by a clear margin, we want to get close to 40 percent. That's a steep uphill battle for our party for next year," said Saxony's AfD leader Jörg Urban. The AfD has shown "that it can do it", that it can also win against the CDU and the Free Voters with a clear lead.

AfD national leader Alice Weidel wrote on Platform X: "Congratulations to Pirna!" AfD candidate Tim Lochner was elected the first AfD mayor there by a large margin over his rivals. Thank you to the many voters who made this historic result for the AfD possible!"

Lochner was the first AfD candidate to win a mayoral election in Germany on Sunday. The 53-year-old master carpenter and restorer prevailed in the second round of voting against opponents from the CDU and Free Voters. Lochner himself is independent but stood for the AfD. According to the provisional results, he received 38.5 percent of the vote. He was followed by Kathrin Dollinger-Knuth from the CDU with 31.4 percent and the independent Ralf Thiele with 30.1 percent, who had entered the race for the Free Voters. Voter turnout was 53.8 percent. Candidates from the Left, SPD and Greens who had also entered the race decided not to run again in the second round in favor of the CDU candidate.

Criticism of third candidate

In the second round of voting, the Left, SPD and Greens supported the CDU candidate Dollinger-Knuth. She was disappointed after the election and criticized the Free Voters: "Although we rallied almost all forces behind our political offer, the voters decided otherwise. Unfortunately, the Free Voters decided to go it alone and thus paved the way for an AfD success," she said. Both had to be accepted.

The Free Voters in turn blamed the CDU. By sticking with its own candidate in the decisive second round of voting, the CDU had "consciously accepted playing the role of stooge for the AfD", explained the Saxon state chairman of the Free Voters, Thomas Weidinger, in Leipzig. He accused the CDU of a "drive to retain power". "It was clear that a third candidate in the second round of voting would play into the hands of the AfD," said Weidinger. "However, the CDU's instinct to retain power was probably too great to back down in favor of a middle-class candidate like Ralf Thiele.

The chairman of the SPD youth organization held both parties responsible. "At this point, it was also a failure on the part of the Free Voters and the CDU, who were unable to agree on a joint candidate in the second round of voting," said Philipp Türmer in the early start on ntv. If an "assured far-right candidate" were to run, all democrats would have to stick together to prevent this. "We are all called upon to win people back for democracy now," says Türmer.

The Greens expressed their concern after the vote. "We are dismayed by the election of a mayor from a party that the Office for the Protection of the Constitution classified as right-wing extremist last week," wrote the Saxon state association of the Greens on X. "We must now do everything we can to strengthen our coexistence and restore confidence in our democracy." The district chairwoman of the Left Party, Lisa Thea Steiner, warned against a policy of "social coldness" in Pirna in the coming years. "In the coming months and years, we will challenge the new mayor on content. We will be loud where he tries to push through anti-social policies. We will point out where he is breaking election promises," explained Steiner.

Not the AfD's first success

Before Pirna, AfD candidates had already won two important local political offices in Germany. In June, the AfD won a district council election for the first time - with Robert Sesselmann in the Sonneberg district of Thuringia. In August, Hannes Loth became the first mayor of a German municipality nationwide - in Raguhn-Jeßnitz in Saxony-Anhalt. The State Office for the Protection of the Constitution recently classified the Saxon AfD as a confirmed right-wing extremist movement. When asked on Sunday evening whether he would have a problem running for the party in the town hall, Lochner again answered in the negative.

A new state parliament will be elected in Saxony on September 1, 2024. Local and European elections are already scheduled for June. Saxony is currently governed by a coalition of the CDU, Greens and SPD with Minister President Michael Kretschmer of the CDU at the helm. In a poll in Saxony published at the beginning of December, the AfD was on a par with the CDU with 33%.