Kommunalwahl in Niedersachsen: Niedersachsen hat gewählt - Wolfsburg bleibt in CDU-Hand

In Niedersachsen, millions of people went to the polls for the local elections, with the results closely watched in Berlin party headquarters. Early results showed that the Wolfsburg city hall, overseen by Dennis Weilmann (CDU), would remain under CDU control with 50.1% of the vote. Karsten Schneider (SPD) came in second with 15.5%, followed by Thomas Schick (AfD) with 14.1%.

In the state capital of Hannover, it appeared early on that a run-off election would be necessary in two weeks. With over two-thirds of the votes counted, incumbent Oberbürgermeister Belit Onay (Green) led his SPD challenger Axel von der Ohe by a significant margin. Turnout was higher than in 2016, with 50.67% of eligible voters casting their ballots.

The final results are expected early Monday, with preliminary figures from Landkreis elections expected around 10:30 PM. NDR will publish an Infratest dimap projection on Sunday to show how parties performed nationwide. CDU leader Sebastian Lechner was optimistic about his party's overall performance, believing Niedersachsen could emerge as the strongest force nationwide.

He acknowledged the Union's "credibility problem" and said it needed to be discussed. The local election was not just a mood test in the SPD-controlled Niedersachsen before the upcoming state election. A week after the AfD's success in the Saxony-Anhalt state election and a week before the upcoming elections in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania and Berlin, the local elections also serve as a gauge of how the AfD is performing in a western German region.

In the 2021 local elections in Niedersachsen, the AfD achieved 4.6% of the vote at the county level. The AfD Landesverb is now under surveillance by the constitutional guard as a right-wing extremist observation object. Four AfD candidates were however disqualified due to doubts about their constitutional fitness. AfD's vice Stephan Bothe, for example, could not run for Lüneburg Landrat.

The CDU is watching closely to see if Chancellor Friedrich Merz can recover from the anticipated setback in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania and the failure in Saxony-Anhalt. The local election is the first nationwide vote since Olaf Lies took over as Minister-President from Stephan Weil (both SPD) last year. Lies cast his vote in his hometown of Sand in Friesland.

"I hope voters will take the time to look at the candidates on the spot," he told Deutsche Presse-Agentur after casting his vote. "It's not a small Bundestag election, but a real personal election. And it's all about the own community, city or county."