{"id":3061,"date":"2023-12-19T02:39:13","date_gmt":"2023-12-19T02:39:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/canadafirst.nfshost.com\/?p=3061"},"modified":"2023-12-19T03:53:31","modified_gmt":"2023-12-19T03:53:31","slug":"nationalist-immigration-reform-party-scores-historical-win-for-mayor-in-saxony","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadafirst.nfshost.com\/?p=3061","title":{"rendered":"Nationalist Immigration Reform Party Scores Historical Win for Mayor in Saxony"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Right-wing German party secures \u2018historic\u2019 win<\/h1>\n\n\n\n

An AfD candidate has been elected as town mayor for the first time<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Right-wing<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Tim Lochner. \u00a9  Matthias Rietschel\/Getty Images<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The right-wing Alternative for Germany (AfD) party has won a mayoral election for the first time, making history in the Saxon town of Pirna. The victory comes less than two weeks after regional authorities designated the AfD as \u201cextremist.<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The AfD has enjoyed rising support among German voters in recent months, at a time when the approval ratings of all three parties in the country\u2019s ruling \u2018traffic light\u2019 coalition have hit record lows.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tim Lochner, who represented the AfD, garnered 38.5% of the vote in the second round of voting on Sunday, ahead of Christian Democratic Union (CDU) contender Kathrin Dollinger-Knuth on 31.4%.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The AfD candidate had won 33% of the vote in the first round of polling on November 26, although none of the five candidates secured the absolute majority necessary to win outright, sending the vote to a second stage. READ MORE: <\/strong>74% of Germans think Scholz failing at his job \u2013 YouGov poll <\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Two of the original contenders exited the race before the second round and urged their supporters to vote for Dollinger-Knuth. The Green and Left parties also backed her in the December vote, although their support proved insufficient to propel the CDU into first place.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In a post on X (formerly Twitter), AfD co-leader Alice Weidel described Lochner\u2019s victory as \u201chistoric.<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Free Voters party candidate Ralf Thiele, who came in third with 30.1%, said there is a \u201ccountrywide trend<\/em>\u201d that shows the AfD is \u201cbecoming stronger.<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Green party branch in Saxony said it was \u201cdismayed<\/em>\u201d by the election outcome in Pirna, while the Left party called on \u201call democratic parties<\/em>\u201d to unite against the AfD.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Earlier this month, the president of the Saxon branch of the Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV), Dirk-Martin Christian, announced that the AfD had officially been deemed extremist over its \u201canti-constitutional agenda.<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The new legal status allows the BfV to deploy surveillance and intelligence means to gather information about the right-wing party\u2019s activities without restriction.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Saxony became the third German region to take action against the AfD, after Thuringia and Sachsen-Anhalt.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The party previously garnered 27.5% of the vote in the last regional election in Saxony in 2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In October, the AfD recorded its best-ever performance in a western German state, receiving 18.4% of the vote in the Hesse regional election<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Right-wing German party secures \u2018historic\u2019 win An AfD candidate has been elected as town mayor for the first time Tim Lochner. \u00a9  Matthias Rietschel\/Getty Images The right-wing Alternative for Germany (AfD) party has won a mayoral election for the first time, making history in the Saxon town of Pirna. The victory comes less than two […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[997,2261,1229,2260,2259],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadafirst.nfshost.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3061"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadafirst.nfshost.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadafirst.nfshost.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadafirst.nfshost.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadafirst.nfshost.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3061"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/canadafirst.nfshost.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3061\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3063,"href":"https:\/\/canadafirst.nfshost.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3061\/revisions\/3063"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadafirst.nfshost.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3061"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadafirst.nfshost.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3061"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadafirst.nfshost.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3061"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}