The elections are being held in Frankfurt an der Oder, a city on the border with Poland, between independent candidate Axel Strasser and AfD competitor Wilko Müller.
Voters in the eastern city of Frankfurt an der Oder cast their ballots in a runoff election that could give the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD), the largest opposition party in parliament, its first win for the mayor of a German city.
Independent candidate Axel Strasser and AfD rival Wilko Müller faced off on Sunday after leading in the first round of voting on September 21, with Strasser receiving 32.4 percent of the vote and Müller 30.2 percent.
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The candidates of the Christian Democratic Union (centre-right) and the Social Democratic Party (centre-left) were eliminated in the first round.
The elections come three days after the Bundestag, the German parliament, stripped two AfD MPs of their parliamentary immunity, with one accused of defamation and the other of performing Nazi salutes, which is illegal in Germany.
Political scientist Jan-Philip Tomiczyk, of the University of Potsdam, told German news agency DPA that a Müller victory would send a “very strong signal” that the anti-immigrant, eurosceptic AfD party could 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 differs from Frankfurt am Main, the much larger financial center in western Germany.
The German Association of Cities and Municipalities says there is currently no AfD-affiliated mayor for a city of this size anywhere in the country.
Tim Lochner has become mayor of the town of Prna, near the Czech border, after being nominated for the 2023 election by the AfD party, but he is technically independent.
AfD politician Robert Siesselmann is the district director for the Sonneberg district in Thuringia. There are also AfD mayors in small towns in the eastern state of Saxony-Anhalt.
Brandenburg’s domestic intelligence service in May classified the AfD’s state branch as a “far-right extremist,” a designation the party rejects as a politically motivated attempt to marginalize it.
A 1,100-page report prepared by the agency – which will not be released to the public – concluded that the AfD is a racist and anti-Muslim organisation.
The designation makes the party subject to surveillance and has revived debate about the possible ban of the AfD, which did so She launched a legal challenge Against the intelligence service.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio He strongly criticized the classification When it was announced, he called it “tyranny in disguise” and urged German authorities to reverse the move.
In response, Germany The United States responded to the administration of US President Donald Trump, and suggested that officials in Washington study history.
The German Foreign Ministry said in a statement: “We have learned from our history that right-wing extremism needs to stop.”
The Kremlin also criticized the measure against the Alternative for Germany party, which regularly repeats Russian narratives about the war in Ukraine, and what it called a broader trend of “restrictive measures” against political movements in Europe.
Brandenburg leaders say the AfD has shown disdain for government institutions, while the state’s domestic intelligence chief, Wilfried Peters, added that the party calls for “discrimination and exclusion” of people who “do not belong to the German mainstream.”
Polling stations closed at 6pm local time (16:00 GMT), and results are expected by late Sunday.
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