With shrill tones, the AfD went to catch votes: masks off, Germany out of the EU, climate protection without us. So she got less percent than four years ago. There is no longer any trace of the spirit of optimism.
“I’m really happy,” says AfD top candidate Alice Weidel in the television studio. But exuberant joy looks different. Even at the AfD election party in a simple Berlin ballroom, the mood was rather poor when the first numbers appear on the screen: around 11 percent.
Four years ago it was 12.6 percent. In September 2017, when the AfD entered the Bundestag for the first time, the mood was exuberant and euphoric. “We’ll hunt them down,” shouted Alexander Gauland at the time. Today he stands alone with his wine glass and a little lost at a bar table covered with blue fabric. “So let’s be happy despite our somewhat weaker result,” he encouraged the party friends. After all, the Union had been punished by the voters, Chancellor Angela Merkel was “gone now”. That is good news.
AfD also loses many votes in state elections
The AfD not only lost votes in the federal elections, but also in the state elections in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania. In Berlin it has downright crashed compared to the last House of Representatives election. The reason for this must now be analyzed, says party vice-president Beatrix von Storch.
Party leader Tino Chrupalla, who together with Weidel formed the top duo for this election campaign, still speaks of a “strong result” that he is “proud” of with a view to the federal election. Later, while having a beer, he checks the numbers from his constituency in Görlitz on his cell phone. They offer much more reason to be happy.
Whether his performance as an election campaigner has convinced the party friends will be shown at the next federal party conference. Because the election this year, which is even more important for some in the AfD, is due on the second weekend in December. Then the AfD wants to elect a new party executive in Wiesbaden.
“Certainly a mixed result”
The right wing of the party is behind Chrupalla and would like to get rid of party leader Jörg Meuthen. Some personal rivals and enemies also want to vote Meuthen out. Peter Boehringer from Bavaria is traded as a possible successor. The name of the NRW state chairman, Rüdiger Lucassen, is also occasionally mentioned in this context. But Meuthen does not give up without a fight. He criticized the election manifesto, especially the demand for Germany to leave the European Union.
“That is certainly a mixed result,” commented Meuthen at the election party. He thinks that in view of the current weakness of the Union, the AfD should have done much better from his point of view. One now has to look at “what it was that we did not gain,” says Meuthen, whose relationship with Chrupalla is considered to have been shattered. One could understand this as a subliminal declaration of war.
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