German far-right candidate narrowly loses Eastern Germany’s local election
A narrow mayoral defeat in a local election in Eastern Germany highlights how far-right politics are pressing against Germany’s democratic firewall.
What you need to know
🔹 CDU candidate Marcus Hoffmann won the Aue-Bad Schlema mayoral runoff with 52.7 percent of the vote.
🔹 Stefan Hartung of the far-right Freie Sachsen party received 47.3 percent after leading the first round in May.
🔹 Freie Sachsen is classified as right-wing extremist by Saxony’s domestic intelligence service.
🔹 The close result has intensified concern about the weakening of Germany’s democratic firewall at local level.
A candidate from Germany’s far-right Freie Sachsen party has narrowly lost a mayoral election in the eastern town of Aue-Bad Schlema, after a campaign that unsettled national politics far beyond the town’s 19,000 residents.
Marcus Hoffmann, the candidate for the conservative Christian Democrats, won Sunday’s second round with 5,007 votes. Stefan Hartung, a leading figure in Freie Sachsen, received 4,499 votes, according to results reported by Die Welt. That gave Hoffmann 52.7 percent of the vote against Hartung’s 47.3 percent.
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