It will still not touch real power, despite leading some polls in Germany and being the first opposition force in the Bundestag. The candidates of the Alternative Party for Germany (AFD) came out clearly defeated this Sunday in the second round of the municipal elections of the North-Westfalia, the most populated federated state in the country.
The extreme right party will not have any mayor in any large city in North-Westphaly Rhine. Nor does it have in the rest of Germany, nor does any federated state govern or land. The union of voters from the rest of the parties against the AFD candidates frustrated in the municipalities of the land Western any expectation that some mayor could start.
He tripled the results in the first round, on September 14. And he showed that, despite the fact that his electoral fief is east of Germany, in the west it has become a consolidated, decisive party in municipal policy. He put three of his candidates in the second round for the Mayor’s Office of three cities of weight: DUISBURG (500,000 inhabitants), Gelsenkironn (260,000) and Hagen (190,000). For this party it represents a success, and for the rest a warning about the penetration of the extreme right in the social democratic bastions of the Ruhr.
The success is relative. On Sunday, the extreme right candidates lost clearly in the three cities mentioned.
In Duisburg, the candidate of the Social Democratic Party (SPD) and current mayor, Sören Link, defeated that of the extreme right, Carten Groß, with 78.6% compared to 21.4%. In Gelsenkirchen, the social democratic candidate, Andrea Henze, defeated Norbert Emmerich, of AFD, with 66.5% compared to 33.5%. In Hagen, the democristian Dennis Rehabein defeated Ultra Michael Eiche with 70% compared to 30%.
The extrapolations of these very local elections towards federal politics are risky. But
Downward in the polls, and with divisions in the coalition with the social democrats, Merz can at least celebrate that the Democristian union is the first force in North-Westphaly Rhine. And he has conquered the mayor of Dortmund, the largest city in the Ruhr basin, with 600,000 inhabitants, governed for 80 years by the SPD.
