No, not the lottery; the odds against this happening by pure coincidence:
Several candidates for the populist Alternative for Germany (AfD) have died in the lead-up to this month’s local elections in the country’s most populous state.
According to the German paper of record Die Welt, at least seven AfD candidates have died ahead of the September 14th elections in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia. Germany’s Deutsche Presse-Agentur wire service noted that a total of 16 candidates have died before the upcoming vote. Yet, no other party besides the Eurosceptic right-wing party has suffered more than one death..
And then this:
Authorities have stressed that there is so far no evidence of foul play in any of the deaths.
Considering that there’s a non-zero chance that the “authorities” may have been behind at least some of these deaths… well, okay.
Let’s look at it more closely:
Police have already confirmed natural causes in four of the AfD candidate deaths and said there are so far no indications of foul play in the others.
So (counting on fingers) that leaves a dozen or so “non-natural” causes.
Then there’s the “it happens all the time” rationale:
A North Rhine-Westphalia election commission spokesman told the DPA that the number of deaths was “not significantly higher” than in past elections, with tens of thousands of people running for seats in the state.
Speaking as a one-time analyst of data, though, I’d love to see a per-thousand number of deaths by party affiliation.
I’m not by nature a conspiracy theorist, but when I’m confronted by a low-probability / massively-coincidental series of events, I do become suspicious. The scale of untimely pre-election and party-specific deaths here is positively Clintonian.
Let me go out on a limb and suggest that the high mortality of AfD candidates is extremely suspicious.
I wouldn’t doubt if there were some government or NGO intervention that caused at least some of this
Modern assault pistols are so scawy deadly, he shot himself in the back of the head three times.
– Stasi comment on coroner’s report.
“Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. Three times is enemy action.” – Ian Fleming.
Sixteen? Your suspicion is likely right.
I tried to post this a few days ago, and apparently messed it up,, so I add it here. It is a happy happenstance that the annual WWII Weapons shoot is coming up again, here in El Dorado Kansas and the El Dorado Lake Shooting Range. Lots of shooty fun to be had by all, shooting old WWI/WWI era vintage battle rifles, including Garands, Mausers, Enfields, Arisakas, Mosins, and vintage pieces of history, and assorted pistols, including the usual suspects – a Luger, 1911, Tokarev, and now a No 2 Mk !* Enfield.. The Sheriff’s dept. brings out a Thompson, and hope to have some other subguns as well. Fundraiser for the WWII History Center; y’all are invited to come up to El Dorado and join us turning money into noise.
Oh – and there is a raffle for a 1943 Garand. Nothing particularly special about her; mix of parts, like most Garands are. But she shoots just fine. $10 a ticket, limited to 500
When I first heard of this I thought about in a context like our elections here is the US. When I discovered there are something like 40,000 candidates across Germany, 16 didn’t seem so unlikely. However that seven of them are from the same officially disfavored, party does seem like a suspicious cluster. I wonder if they were polling well or were perceived as spoilers for an approved party candidate.