AfD is ahead in nine out of ten districts in Saxony

The AfD is ahead in the local elections after the majority of votes have been counted in nine out of ten Saxon districts. Preliminary final results were only available by midday on Monday from the districts of Central Saxony, Meißen, North Saxony and the Erzgebirge and Vogtland districts. In each of these districts, the AfD was ahead of the CDU. The Saxon AfD is classified as right-wing extremist by the state's Office for the Protection of the Constitution, but is currently defending itself legally against this.

After 32 of 36 municipalities had been counted, the CDU (29.3 percent) was only ahead of the AfD (28.1 percent) in the district of Zwickau. Five years ago, the CDU had won eight out of ten districts. The counting of votes was interrupted in some constituencies on Sunday night. "The reason is that after the long election day and the time-consuming process of determining the results, some helpers are exhausted and no longer have the necessary concentration." On Sunday evening, the votes for the European elections were counted first.

The vote in the Erzgebirgskreis district was extremely close. According to the preliminary results, the AfD won 29.4 percent of the vote there, while the CDU won 29.3 percent. In the Vogtland district, the AfD came in ahead of the CDU (27.4%) with 28.3% of the vote. In all other districts, the gap between the two parties was at least three percentage points. In the district of Görlitz, the AfD was more than twelve percentage points ahead of the CDU after the majority of votes were counted on Monday.