Luxembourg City, Strassen, Esch-sur-Alzette, Hesperange, Bertrange, Differdange, Walferdange, Mamer, and Kopstal: A majority of residents in all of these municipalities do not hold Luxembourgish nationality.
Bertrange has the highest proportion of foreigners standing for municipal elections, with 9 out of 52 candidates, or 17.3%. In Differdange* and in Luxembourg City, the percentage of foreign candidates is around 17%. In the capital, where 70% of all inhabitants do not hold Luxembourgish nationality, the Left Party (déi Lénk) has the most foreign candidates (9 out of 27). The Democratic Party (DP) is the only party in Luxembourg City with no foreign candidates on its list.
In Differdange, it is also the Left Party that has the most foreign candidates (5 out of 19), while the Green Party (déi Gréng) has no foreign candidates. The Conservatives (déi Konservativ) did not disclose this information to our colleagues from RTL.lu upon enquiry.
The Christian Social People’s Party (CSV) and the DP are the only parties with lists in all of these nine communes. The DP has submitted six lists without any foreign candidates, compared to three for the CSV. The Luxembourg Socialist Workers’ Party (LSAP) is represented with a list in eight municipalities, the Pirate Party in four, Fokus and the Alternative Democratic Reform Party (adr) in two, and the Luxembourg Communist Party (KPL) in one. All of these parties have at least one foreign candidate on each of their lists.
In addition to Luxembourg City and Differdange, the Left Party also has a list in Esch-sur-Alzette, where all candidates hold Luxembourgish nationality. In Luxembourg City, two out of the 14 candidates on the list Mir d’Vollek (“Our People”) do not hold Luxembourgish nationality, while in Kopstal, one out of the eleven candidates on the citizens’ list is a non-Luxembourg national. In Kopstal, the proportion of non-Luxembourg nationals is also the lowest, at 2 out of 33 candidates, or 6%.
Not even one in five foreign residents has registered to vote by the deadline next Monday. By the end of March, the number of foreigners registered to vote in the nine municipalities mentioned ranged from 11.9% (Luxembourg City) to 21.6% (Mamer). For candidates, the rate is a bit lower still, averaging 13% according to the information* our colleagues from RTL.lu have been able to gather so far.
* In these calculations, only the nine municipalities where non-Luxembourgers are in the majority and that vote according to proportional representation were considered. A number of parties in various municipalities have themselves indicated which nationalities their candidates hold; others have disclosed this information to RTL.lu on request. Only the Conservatives have so far not gotten back to our colleagues, meaning that their list in Differdange could not be included.
