A candidate from national revolutionary party The Third Way has been elected to a city council for the first time in former West Germany, winning more than 10% of the vote in some districts.
Candidate Julian Bender was elected to the Hilchenbach City Council on Sunday with 3.08% of the total vote despite only being eligible to run in seven out of 16 constituencies and facing a concerted campaign against him by a bloc of established parties.
The party won 12.37% in Vormwald, where a new asylum seeker centre is planned, and 11.76% in Hilchenbach North, making it the third most popular party in those districts. It also received 7.95% in Hilchenbach Herrnberg, and 6.48% in Dahlbruch West.
Mr Bender was excluded from running in the mayoral election due to accusations of a “lack of loyalty to the constitution”, and The Third Way has been forced to fight legal battles over its office in the city and the right to hold rallies.
But the new Councilman told Noticer News that the result in the heart of West Germany showed that electoral success was possible with dedication and consistent work.
“While all the old parties and self-proclaimed ‘democrat'” joined forces against us, we prevailed. Our victory in North Rhine-Westphalia is a clear political signal that cannot be distorted even by our political opponents,” he said.
“Although we were only eligible to vote in less than half of the constituencies, we managed to win. We can only imagine what would have happened if we had campaigned across the board. So what we need are not populists, but committed and honest national revolutionaries.”
Leftist activists lamented the results, with journalists in the Siegener Beitung newspaper describing the party as “racist” and “right-wing extremist”, using headlines like “fears come true” and writing “this should not have happened”.
The Third Way is not the only party to face mayoral candidate exclusion, with Alternative for Germany (AfD) candidate Joachim Paul now fighting a legal battle after being struck from the ballot in Ludwigshafen over allegations he is also disloyal to the constitution.
The AfD received 24.3% of the vote in Ludwigshafen during the last federal election, and is the most popular party.
Mr Paul accompanied AfD deputy leader Beatrix von Storch on a trip to the White House this week where his disqualification was presented as an example of the narrowing of political freedoms in Germany, officials told Politico.
The Third Way said on its website that the conditions in Hilchenbach and Ludwigshafen were increasingly resembling those in the former East Germany.
Header image: Julian Bender outside The Third Way’s office in Hilchenbach (supplied).
