Wüst believes the rise of the AfD is reversible and emphasizes the importance of Turkish immigrants

North Rhine-Westphalia's Prime Minister Hendrik Wüst believes that the AfD's further rise in surveys and elections is reversible. “When I see the local election results in North Rhine-Westphalia: Compared to the federal election results, the AfD lost two percent here,” said the CDU politician in an interview published on Monday with the Turkish news agency Anadolu Ajansi and the newspaper “Hürriyet”. In the local elections in autumn 2025, the AfD achieved 14.5 percent - 9.4 percentage points more than in the 2020 local elections, but less than the national result for the federal election in February 2025 with 16.8 percent.

“This development is not irreversible,” he emphasized when asked about the strong AfD growth in the East German state elections. But you have to take the election results in Saxony-Anhalt, Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania and Berlin as an opportunity to think very carefully about what you have to do differently. The CDU politician said he was worried that many people had the feeling that they could no longer raise their concerns with the established parties. “This is dangerous.”

Many people voted for parties on the political fringes because they had lost hope that the political center could solve their problems. “And that’s why we also have to talk about content, we also have to talk about the fact that politics has to change.” The Prime Minister of the most populous federal state cited energy costs and migration policy as examples. A new state parliament will be elected in North Rhine-Westphalia in April 2026.

Wüst set off on Monday with a business delegation for a three-day trip to Turkey. The occasion also marks the 65th anniversary of the recruitment of Turkish workers by Germany. "Without the many people with Turkish roots who worked in mining, for example, Germany's energy supply would not have worked. Without them, the reconstruction and development of our infrastructure would not have happened," emphasized the Prime Minister.

"The children and grandchildren are now working in responsible positions everywhere in our society: they are teachers, police officers, entrepreneurs, club chairmen. This shows quite well that, despite all the challenges, the guest workers of the time and their current children and grandchildren are an integral part of our society." Wüst emphasized that North Rhine-Westphalia in particular is trying to “bring the diversity of cultures together”.