Voters in an eastern German city chose an independant candidate over the Alternative for Germany contender on Sunday, blocking what would have been the far-right party’s first urban win in a mayoral election.
In the city of Frankfurt an der Oder, independent Axel Strasser won with with 69.8% of the vote against AfD candidate Wilko Möller, who received 30.2%, according to preliminary results. Voter turnout was 49.4%.
In the first round of voting on September 21, Strasser received 32.4% of the vote and Möller 30.2%, while candidates from the centre-right Christian Democrats and the centre-left Social Democrats were eliminated.
Ahead of the vote, political scientist Jan Philipp Thomeczek, of the University of Potsdam, told dpa that a victory for Möller would have sent “a very strong signal” that the anti-immigrant and eurosceptic AfD can succeed in urban areas.
Frankfurt an der Oder is a city in the eastern German state of Brandenburg, located directly on the border with Poland. It is distinct from Frankfurt am Main, the much larger financial hub in western Germany.
It is the fourth-largest city in Brandenburg with some 57,000 residents. The city’s challenges include border checks to and from Poland, immigration and the economy.
The German Association of Cities and Towns and Municipalities said there is currently no AfD-affiliated mayor of a city of significant size anywhere in the country.
Tim Lochner became mayor of the of the town of Pirna, near the Czech border, after being nominated for election in 2023 by the AfD, although he is technically an independent.
An AfD politician, Robert Sesselmann, is the district administrator in the Sonneberg district in Thuringia. There are also AfD mayors in small towns in the eastern state of Saxony-Anhalt.
The Brandenburg domestic intelligence service this year classified the AfD’s state branch as “confirmed far-right extremist,” a label the party rejects as politically motivated.
Brandenburg leaders say the AfD has shown contempt for government institutions, while the state’s domestic intelligence chief Wilfried Peters added that the party advocates for the “discrimination and exclusion” of people who do not “belong to the German mainstream.”
Axel Strasser, the new mayor of Frankfurt (Oder), speaks after his election victory in Frankfurt (Oder) town hall. Strasser (no party affiliation) becomes Lord Mayor of Frankfurt (Oder) and has won the run-off election against against Alternative for Germany (AfD) candidate Wilko Moeller. Patrick Pleul/dpa
