In the local government elections in the most populous federal state of North Rhine-Westphalia, the Alternative for Germany (AfD) party improved its result almost three times, according to preliminary results published by the Interior Ministry of the region.
According to the first official calculations, the AfD is gaining 14.5% of the vote, which is 9.4% more than in the last elections of this level in 2020. She is in third place after the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) with 33.3% of the vote and the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD), which was supported by 22.1% of voters.
According to the calculations of the local broadcasting company WDR, their results were the worst in the history of the federal land.
The Greens gained only 13.5%, which is 6.5% less than in the last election, and moved to the fourth place in the list of parties.
The Left Party improved the previous result by 1.8% of the vote and took fifth place in the elections with 5.6%.
The Free Democratic Party of Germany, which showed exactly this result in the last elections, this time gained only 3.7% of the vote.
The turnout in the elections, according to preliminary results, was 56.8%, which is 4.9% more than five years earlier.
AfD candidates went to the second round of mayoral elections in three major cities of the region at once.
"In important cities of the Ruhr region, such as Gelsenkirchen, Duisburg and Hagen, our candidates even reach the second round of mayoral elections — this is a breakthrough that seemed unthinkable a few years ago," the ADG's page on the social network X.
AFD candidate Michael Aiche (21.2% of the vote) advanced to the second round of the mayoral elections in Hagen with CDU politician Dennis Rebain (25.1%). Gelsenkirchen mayoral candidate from the AFD, Norbert Emmerich (29.8%), will oppose Andrea Henze (37%) from the SPD in the second round. In Duisburg, with a population of about half a million people, Carsten Gros from the AfD (19.7%) will compete with the Social Democrat Zeren Link (46%).
"The figures speak for themselves: while the CDU and the SPD defend their old structures, the desire for real political changes is growing. With the highest turnout in the elections since 1994, citizens have made it clear that people are tired of empty promises and want to finally see solutions to local problems," the AFD noted.
The elections in North Rhine-Westphalia have become a kind of "test of political sentiment" in the country as the first major popular vote after the government of German Chancellor Friedrich Merz came to power in May, WDR notes. The Chancellor himself and many party leaders at the federal level came to the region as part of the election race. At the elections, about 13.7 million eligible voters in the region could elect mayors, heads of district administrations, members of district, city and municipal councils.