Administrators in a German village have unanimously elected a member of a neo-Nazi party as council head as he was the only person interested in the job, prompting an outcry from politicians who demanded the vote be annulled.
The seven-member council of Waldsiedlung, a small community near Frankfurt, voted for Stefan Jagsch of the National Democratic Party (NDP) to become council head.
The administrators who voted for Jagsch at a meeting last week included members of Chancellor Angela Merkel's Christian Democrats (CDU), a Turkish-German representative of the centre-left Social Democrats (SPD) and members of the liberal Free Democrats (FDP).
Stefan Jagsch is a member of the right-wing extremist National Democratic Party. Source: ANDREAS ARNOLD/AFP/Getty Images
Jagsch's election has been condemned by the SPD, CDU, and FDP, which refuse to work with the NPD.
"The SPD has a very clear position: We do not cooperate with Nazis! Never! This applies at the federal, state and communal levels," SPD secretary general Lars Klingbeil wrote on Twitter.
"The decision in Altenstadt is incredible and cannot be justified. It must be reversed."
On the streets of Waldsiedlung, residents seemed divided over the vote.
"The problem is Jagsch is a very nice person who belongs to the wrong party and I am against promoting NPD members," said resident Ingo Waldschmidt.
But Karl-Heinz Boller said the vote was wrong.
"I am outraged and it's beyond me how they could have voted for this man," he said.
"This needs to be corrected."
Ali Riza Agdas, who represents the SPD in the council, told the Sueddeutsche Zeitung daily, "I have known him for years and have never had a problem with him."
Who are Germany's National Democratic Party?
The party was founded in 1964 and identifies as Germany's "significant patriotic force". It's often referred to as the country's only significant far-right political group resembling Hilter's Nazi party.
A 2005 report from the country's described the party's activism as "racist, antisemitic, homophobic, revisionist" and intending "to disparage the democratic and lawful order of the constitution".
Despite widespread criticism, in 2017, the country's Constitutional Court ruled against banning the party because it was "too weak to endanger democracy".
Several senior NPD figures have been convicted of Holocaust denial or incitement — its European MP Udo Voigt has described Hitler as a "great German statesman" — but the party denies any involvement in violence.
