Bit by bit, the AfD had worked its way into the state parliaments and the Bundestag in Germany over the past few years. Now she has to vacate a state parliament for the first time. The party is rumbling – once again.
After its electoral defeat in Schleswig-Holstein, the dispute over the content of the AfD and the appointment of the party leadership broke out again.
Party leader Tino Chrupalla described Monday’s departure from the state parliament as a disappointment, but at the same time sees “nothing unusual” and no connection with his person. Top representatives of the AfD, on the other hand, called for a realignment in terms of content and personnel in order to also score points in the West.
The AfD has lost some of its conservative supporters with its Ukraine course, said federal board member Joana Cotar. “In Schleswig-Holstein, these voters have defected in droves to the CDU, FDP and even to the Greens. The AfD now absolutely needs an offensive in the West in order to mobilize more than its core constituency there again.” “Keep it up” is not the solution.
«New topics and a new style» demanded
The deputy AfD parliamentary group leader in the Bundestag, Norbert Kleinwächter, demanded that the party have to reorganize itself. “We need new topics and a new style with which we can bind voters to us in the long term. The federal leadership of the party urgently needs new heads with a confident demeanor and new ideas. »
Chrupalla told the German Press Agency about leaving the state parliament: “Of course it’s a disappointment, although it’s part of everyday political life that you sometimes have to suffer a defeat.” But that’s not unusual for smaller parties either, he added. He rejected personal responsibility: “In Schleswig-Holstein, Jörg Nobis was up for election and not Tino Chrupalla. So it shouldn’t be overestimated.”
After its foundation in 2013, the AfD gradually moved into all German state parliaments, and in 2017 also into the Bundestag. In the state elections in Schleswig-Holstein on Sunday, according to the preliminary result, she failed at the five percent hurdle with 4.4 percent and was thus voted out of a state parliament for the first time.
Chrupalla’s internal party critics feel confirmed in their assessment that elections in the West cannot be won with his course. Among other things, they accuse the master painter from Saxony of having a policy that is too pro-Russian and taking a course that is too far to the right.
Up to the top of the AfD there are two opposing currents: those who like to emphasize the “bourgeois” and “moderate” and want to convince conservative voters of the Union, especially in the West, with their content and appearance – this current was represented by the ex- Co-CEO Jörg Meuthen. The AfD top candidate Jörg Nobis, who was unsuccessful in Schleswig-Holstein, is also one of them. Party leader Chrupalla takes a different position: the voters didn’t want a new CDU, he said on Monday and criticized the fact that the election campaign in Schleswig-Holstein was indistinguishable from the CDU and FDP.
At the AfD party conference in June, it should be decided in which direction the party is going. The 14-strong board including party leadership is re-elected. At the weekend, Björn Höcke, head of the Thuringian AfD and, according to the President of the Office for the Protection of the Constitution, Thomas Haldenwang, one of the “central actors” within the so-called New Right, spoke up and did not rule out an application for the board.
“A persona non grata should not rise from the grave, especially not right before the election,” Kleinwächter criticized the announcement on Twitter. The former Rhineland-Palatinate AfD boss, Uwe Junge, even suspects that the timing was deliberate. That had reached the voters in the north, he wrote on Facebook. “A bourgeois Nobis and Meuthen man was not allowed to win.” With the federal executive election, the AfD will “finally wither away to the proletarian East Party,” wrote Junge, who has long since left the AfD, but keeps speaking up. Jung’s criticism is at least partially shared, according to the camp of Chrupalla critics.
In Riesa it should be busy
At the party conference from June 17th to 19th in Riesa, Saxony, things are likely to get busy. A tweet from AfD federal vice Stephan Brandner speaks volumes: “I think it’s great that we will soon have a federal party conference where we can talk a little about our course… and will” – behind it a smiley.
First of all, everyone is looking at next Sunday, when a new state parliament will be elected in the most populous federal state of North Rhine-Westphalia. The AfD was last in polls at 6 to 8 percent. Chrupalla was optimistic: Schleswig-Holstein was purely a personal choice with great satisfaction with the state government and the Prime Minister. “It looks a bit different in NRW.”
Source: Stern
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