by Chris Black
When future historians look back on the end of democracy in Europe, they will say it died in darkness when Prigozhin failed his attempt at a coup to do more democracy in Russia.
For the first time in Germany, the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) has won a district council election, administrators announced on Sunday (25.6.2023).
Voters in the eastern German town of Sonneberg— located in former East Germany GDR — elected AfD candidate Robert Sesselmann at the expense of incumbent district administrator Jürgen Köpper of the center-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU).
In the runoff election in the Thuringian district of Sonneberg, Sesselmann won 52.8% of the vote, earning him the necessary absolute majority, according to election officials.
The area of some 57,000 people is one of the smallest districts in Germany. Still, the AfD victory is a major breakthrough for the far-right party, whose Thuringia branch has been classified as far-right extremist by Germany’s domestic intelligence service. All mainstream parties regularly vow to not enter coalition governments with the AfD.