Prominent newcomer, but not yet a driving force: the accession of long-time AfD leader Jörg Meuthen brought hardly any new members to the German Center Party.
It’s going well, Christian Otte wants it to be understood. Last Friday, the federal chairman of the German Center Party spoke of a “very remarkable development” that the year 2022 had in store for his party.
First of all, they have returned to the German Bundestag “after 65 years of abstinence”. The parliamentarian Uwe Witt switched to the center after leaving the AfD and has represented the party (non-attached) in the upper house since then. “Only five months later”, one could announce the first representation of the party in the European Parliament. Because another, much more prominent ex-AfD member has joined: long-time AfD boss Jörg Meuthen.
Today’s small party with a long history has high expectations of Meuthen, who left the AfD after six years at the helm. “What we have been missing so far is the appropriate attention, awareness,” said Otte at the official presentation of the newcomer. You can already see that from . In the future, they want to appear with the 50-euro question, “because anyone can answer it.”
The announcement of Meuthen’s accession is now seven days ago. Has interest in the politics of the German Center Party increased since then?
Only a few new members after joining Meuthen
Meuthen’s accession has not yet led to a major mobilization. “The center currently has 593 members,” said federal chairman Otte on Friday at the request of the star, “of which about 35 have been added since the announcement of Mr. Meuthen’s entry – without this allowing conclusions to be drawn about causality in individual cases”. In addition, a further 28 applications for membership are in the review process, and six applications for membership have been “rejected” by the federal executive board. “As far as I know, not a single one has left the party,” said Otte.
Within the party, the response to the newcomer is mostly good. “A majority of the members and functionaries in the center have expressed themselves positively,” said Otte zum star“Individual voices of criticism referred exclusively to the question of how the center was thereby presented by third parties.”
“There will be no AfD 2.0 with me”
At his official presentation, Meuthen tried to dispel the impression that his accession could mean a political shift in the Center Party’s position. The party stands for what is sorely lacking in German politics at the moment: for enlightenment, a clear foundation of values and non-ideological bourgeois reason, said the 60-year-old. “For radical or extremist ideas there was in the Center Party never a place. And that will remain so in the future,” he assured. Meuthen emphasized that the center would “definitely not become a gathering place for former AfD members. There will be no AfD 2.0 with me.”
At the end of January, Meuthen left the AfD, citing what he considered to be a radical course taken by many AfD top officials. He was co-chair for more than six years. Today he is a non-attached MEP. Meuthen said he decided against founding a new party because he didn’t think the chances of success for such a project were very promising.
Center Party wants to “reactivate itself nationwide”
The accession of the former AfD top functionary has not changed the political goals of the Center Party, assures Federal Chairman Otte. The goal remains the same: “To reactivate the Center Party nationwide in order to close the representation gap that has arisen in the conservative party spectrum as a bourgeois-liberal force on a Christian-social basis,” he says star. “People should also be reached who do not (any longer) feel understood by the relevant parties, but at the same time the ability to connect to the breadth of the democratic spectrum should be retained.”
The Center Party, founded in 1870, played an important role in the German Empire and in the Weimar Republic as a representative of political Catholicism. In the Weimar Republic, she provided the Chancellor on several occasions. In the Federal Republic, however, it quickly lost influence because a large part of its base turned to the newly founded CDU.
The almost 600 members that the center claims to have nationwide are spread over four state associations and twelve district or local associations, for example in North Rhine-Westphalia and Lower Saxony. In the past, the party had attracted attention with radical anti-abortion campaigns – the party has left the criticism behind, .
The website of the German Center Party contains neither a basic program nor explanations on current topics, although the party positioned itself “clearly against the acts of war and the invasion of Russian troops” in Ukraine. For the state elections in North Rhine-Westphalia, the center presented and achieved .
The center plays no role in federal politics. Meuthen nevertheless attaches importance to the fact that the party should not be “represented as a district league”. “It has a very, very long history, but has in fact been suppressed in recent decades and is now a small party, you could also say small party,” he said on ZDF. “But it is a very, very good party with a very, very clear set of values.” First of all he wanted to be a simple member. “If it comes down to managerial tasks, then of course I’m happy to take them on.”
Source: Stern
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