Elections: Weidel wants to run for AfD chancellor

AfD leader Alice Weidel has expressed interest in her party’s planned candidacy for chancellor in the next federal elections. “Of course I feel like it, but others also want it,” she said on Thursday on the “Welt” station when asked if she would like it. At the same time, she pointed out that no one in the AfD had the right to access the post and that the question would be decided by the members at a party conference or through a member survey.

On Wednesday, Weidel, who leads the AfD together with her co-boss Tino Chrupalla, said in an interview with RTL/ntv that her party wanted to nominate a candidate for chancellor for the first time in the upcoming federal elections. The next election will take place regularly in late summer or autumn 2025. So far, the AfD had refrained from nominating a candidate for chancellor. In polls it is currently between 18 and 20 percent.

Remaining parties reject cooperation with AfD

“We will nominate a chancellor candidate because our poll numbers also allow us to make a claim for leadership here,” said Weidel on “Welt”. Normally, only parties with a realistic chance of becoming prime minister nominate a candidate for chancellor. The other parties in the Bundestag reject cooperation with the AfD.

In the interview, Weidel also commented on Thuringia’s AfD boss Björn Höcke, whom the head of the Office for the Protection of the Constitution, Thomas Haldenwang, described as a right-wing extremist. When asked whether Höcke could also be nominated as an AfD candidate for chancellor, Weidel said: “Theoretically he could do that, but Mr. Höcke will first go into the state election campaign next year in Thuringia and I think, because of the excellent result, he will too he can claim leadership there and then stay there.”