A candidate from Germany's far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party won a city mayoral election for the first time on Sunday. Tim Lochner was elected after winning the second round of voting in Pirna, a town in the eastern state of Saxony where the AfD has been notably strong. Initial results showed that Lochner had won 38.5% of the vote, the city stated on its website.
Lochner, 53, is an independent but decided to stand under the far-right AfD banner for the vote. In the first round Lochner secured a third of the vote, but was able to increase his share in the second round. The local Greens and Social Democrats dropped out after the first round and threw their support behind the CDU's Dollinger-Knuth. Tim Lochner has become the first AfD mayor of a German city.
Sunday's result comes just days after the eastern state of Saxony's domestic intelligence agency deemed the AfD as a right-wing extremist party. Pirna marks the first time the AfD has won a mayorship in a town. In August, Hannes Loth was elected as the first mayor of a municipality Raguhn-Jenitz in the state of Saxony-Anhalt but this was a region with just 9,000 inhabitants. In June, the party won its first district council election, with candidate Robert Sesselmann in the Sonneberg district in Thuringia.
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