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Hans-Georg Maaßen with former SPD politician Thilo Sarrazin at an event in Suhl
Photo: Martin Schutt / dpa
His candidacy was one of the most controversial in this year's election campaign: Hans-Georg Maaßen ran for the Union in constituency 196 in southern Thuringia as a candidate for a seat in the Bundestag.
In all probability Maassen will not be a member of parliament.
After counting more than 400 of the 418 electoral districts, he is well behind his SPD competitor, the former Olympic champion Frank Ullrich.
Ullrich got more than 33 percent of the vote, Maaßen a good 22 percent - and is just ahead of AfD applicant Jürgen Treutler.
Maassen was not represented on the CDU state list.
In the run-up to the election, Maassen had been given a good chance of entering the Bundestag.
In the past few weeks, the candidate had repeatedly made headlines with right-wing statements.
The federal CDU never took a clear position in the election campaign.
An unusual step by the Greens may have contributed to the success of the SPD politician Ullrich: They had called on their appendices to give Ullrich the first vote.
A vote for Ullrich "protects democracy and prevents a vote that is open to the far right from moving into the Bundestag," said the federal executive director of the Greens, Michael Kellner, to the newspapers of the Funke media group two and a half weeks before the election.
Ullrich has "the best chance" of entering parliament, said Kellner.
It must remain the common concern of all convinced democrats to defend "our democracy".
This is not a party-political question.
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