Anti-immigration party, with 33% of votes, looks to have secured its first regional election win. Read more at straitstimes.com.

ERFURT, Germany - The mood was jubilant among supporters of Germany’s far-right AfD on Sept 1 after the party triumphed in a national election pundits labelled a political earthquake.

To them, the hero of the hour was Bjoern Hoecke, the former history teacher running in the state of Thuringia who delivered the Alternative for Germany (AfD)‘s biggest victory to date.

“He absolutely had to win,” said party faithful Patrick Teichmann, 32, his eyes sparkling with joy at the rise of the party which has vowed to deport illegal immigrants.

…

After the first exit polls were announced, several hundred young demonstrators gathered near the state parliament, most of them from the anti-fascist movement and dressed in black.

Rally organisers cautioned them about laws that ban fully covering one’s face with scarves or ski masks, while around 50 police officers kept a watchful eye.

Slogans on placards demanded a ban on the AfD and support for refugees.

Public debate has flared for years in Germany about large numbers of asylum seekers from Syria, Afghanistan and elsewhere, the mood at times inflamed by violent crimes.

About a week before the state elections in Thuringia and Saxony, Germany was shocked by a stabbing spree at a street festival in the western city of Solingen, where a 26-year-old Syrian man with suspected links to the Islamic State group is alleged to have killed three people.

Another AfD supporter in Erfurt, a 54-year-old wholesale retailer who only gave his name as Joerg, demanded “sweeping changes … that will be possible only with the AfD”, including more deportations of immigrants who have committed crimes.

The expulsion of foreigners from Germany through a “remigration” programme has been a pillar of Mr Hoecke’s election campaign.

  • LovstuhagenOPMEnglish
    2·
    2 months ago

    Some more analysis:

    The anti-migrant nationalists would be in pole position to form state governments in both regions, had the establishment parties not vowed a cordon sanitaire to keep them from power. The AFD’s success came despite calls to ban the party after allegations members discussed mass deportations of foreigners at a secret meeting.

    In another scandal this year, a senior AFD man declared not all Waffen-SS members were criminals.

    That did not deter voters in the the AFD heartlands of East Germany, who have backed the eurosceptic, pro-Putin party in their droves and given Mr Scholz a very bloody nose.

    Telegraph via MSN