Hamburg State Elections Conducted In Wave Of Hatred - AfD

Hamburg State Elections Conducted in Wave of Hatred - AfD

Hamburg's state elections, which resulted in the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SDP) winning the vote, were conducted amid a wave of hatred following a recent shooting in the town of Hanau that left nine people dead, Alternative for Germany's (AfD) leader in the Bundestag Alexander Gauland told reporters on Monday

BERLIN (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 24th February, 2020) Hamburg's state elections, which resulted in the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SDP) winning the vote, were conducted amid a wave of hatred following a recent shooting in the town of Hanau that left nine people dead, Alternative for Germany's (AfD) leader in the Bundestag Alexander Gauland told reporters on Monday.

According to the preliminary results of Sunday's vote, the SDP claimed 39 percent of the vote. The Greens won 24.2 percent of the vote, double the proportion they received in the previous election in 2015. Chancellor Angela Merkel's Christian Democratic Union won just 11.2 percent, a decrease of 4.7 percent compared to the 2015 vote. AfD received 5.3 percent of the Hamburg vote.

"It was difficult, because we have been marginalized to a certain extent in recent days, and there has been hatred incited against us, to a certain degree, that I have never seen before, and also in Germany," Gauland stated.

The AfD Bundestag leader placed the blame on German media for the campaign against his party.

Gauland stated that media assumptions about the AfD could in no way correspond with a democratic party.

"If there is no detente, then democracy is indeed in danger, but not because of us, but because of attempts to squeeze us out of the democratic spectrum," Gauland stated.

The AfD has previously played an active role in supporting right-wing demonstrations in the city of Chemnitz, where Daniel Hillig, a 35-year-old German national, died during an altercation with a group of immigrants in 2018. His death prompted a wave of anti-immigrant protests in the eastern German city.

This past week, Germany was rocked by an attack that German Interior Minister Horst Seehofer called a "terrorist attack motivated by racism." On Wednesday, a 43-year-old German national opened fire in two hookah parlors in Hanau, murdering nine people.

In 2019, far-right extremists committed two major violent incidents, including the June murder of Kassel politician Walter Lubcke, and the October attack on a synagogue in the city of Halle that left two people dead.