Local elections have begun in Lower Saxony. Polling stations opened at 8:00 a.m. on Sunday, and more than six million eligible voters can cast their ballots until 6:00 p.m. Voters are deciding the composition of almost 2,200 local representative bodies, with more than 29,000 seats up for election. In addition, according to the State Election Authority, there are nearly 400 direct elections, including elections for mayor, lord mayor and district administrator.
Among other positions, voters are choosing the lord mayor of the state capital Hanover as well as the president of the Hanover Region. In the 2021 local elections, the CDU emerged as the strongest party statewide, narrowly ahead of the SPD, while the Greens came third. According to the State Election Authority, election results will initially be counted locally and regionally from Sunday evening. A preliminary statewide result is not expected until Monday morning.
The local elections in Lower Saxony are taking place one week after the state election in Saxony-Anhalt, which the AfD won by a clear margin. As a result, the party's performance in Lower Saxony is also being closely watched. Next Sunday, new state parliaments will be elected in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania and Berlin.
In Lower Saxony's local elections five years ago, the AfD received 2.2 percent in elections to municipal representative bodies. In elections to district councils and the representative bodies of independent cities, it received 4.6 percent.
The AfD is now classified by the Lower Saxony Office for the Protection of the Constitution as a confirmed right-wing extremist organisation. Several of its candidates for mayor and district administrator have been barred from standing because of doubts about their commitment to the constitution. The background to this is new rules in the Local Elections Act.
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