{"id":394834,"date":"2025-09-03T15:16:19","date_gmt":"2025-09-03T15:16:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/394834\/"},"modified":"2025-09-03T15:16:19","modified_gmt":"2025-09-03T15:16:19","slug":"six-candidates-for-germanys-far-right-afd-party-die-in-lead-up-to-election","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/394834\/","title":{"rendered":"Six candidates for Germany\u2019s far-right AfD party die in lead up to election"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Six candidates for Germany\u2019s far-right AfD party have died in recent weeks ahead of local elections in the large western state of North Rhine Westphalia. <\/p>\n

Police have said there is no suggestion of foul play at hand in the deaths, which have caused speculation among the party\u2019s supporters on social media. <\/p>\n

More than 20,000 candidates will run for office in the election on 14 September across the state, which has a population of 18 million. <\/p>\n

Despite the police ruling out suspicious circumstances, retired economist Stefan Homburg claimed in a post on X that the number of candidates’ deaths was “statistically almost impossible\u201d. His post was later retweeted by the AfD\u2019s co-leader Alice Weidel<\/a>, while AfD supporter and billionaire Elon Musk responded to the tweet with an exclamation mark. <\/p>\n

The state\u2019s interior ministry has pointed out that candidates from other parties have passed away in the weeks leading up to the vote. <\/p>\n

\"AfD<\/p>\n

open image in gallery<\/p>\n

AfD has grown to be the second biggest party in Germany, coming second in the general election in February (Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.)<\/p>\n

The AfD\u2019s co-leader in North Rhine Westphalia, Kay Gottschalk, acknowledged the rumours on Tuesday, saying: “What I have in front of me is just partial information that doesn’t back up these suspicions at the moment”.<\/p>\n

Mr Gottschalk told Politico\u2019s Berlin Playbook Podcast that his party wanted the cases investigated, “without immediately getting into conspiracy-theory territory”. He said the party had to deal with the situation carefully, out of respect for the family members of those who died. <\/p>\n

German police told the DPA news agency that the deaths were either the result of natural causes or were not being revealed for privacy reasons. <\/p>\n

\"An<\/p>\n

open image in gallery<\/p>\n

An election campaign placard of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AFD) party in Ueckendorf, western Germany (AFP via Getty Images)<\/p>\n

The anti-migrant AfD has surged in recent years to become Germany\u2019s main opposition, coming second place in the general election in February with 20.8 per cent of the vote<\/a>. <\/p>\n

The German domestic spy agency declared the party as \u201cextremist\u201d in May, which it based on a 1,100-page report. It was a move that has now allowed the agency to use secret methods to monitor the party<\/a>, which include recruiting confidential informants and intercepting communications. <\/p>\n

A high-profile member of the AfD, Bj\u00f6rn H\u00f6cke, was convicted<\/a> of using a Nazi slogan at an event last year. <\/p>\n

In June, another report from the agency stated that the number of right-wing extremists in the party had increased by 77 per cent<\/a> in 2025, reaching around 20,000 people. <\/p>\n

The deaths of the candidates have meant new ballots must be drawn up and reprinted, and some postal voters will have to re-cast their vote. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Your support helps us to tell the story From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":394835,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5310],"tags":[2000,299,1824],"class_list":{"0":"post-394834","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-germany","8":"tag-eu","9":"tag-europe","10":"tag-germany"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115141029837748463","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/394834","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=394834"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/394834\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/394835"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=394834"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=394834"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=394834"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}