Alice Weidel and her candidacy for chancellor: There can only be one

“Wow, that’s hard,” exclaims Alice Weidel. The AfD chairwoman laughs loudly. The 90s hit “Mr. Vain” plays from a Bluetooth box – it’s Weidel’s music request. She should pose, campaign photos are needed. It is already the third shooting in Berlin. From the agency’s point of view, the images from the first two attempts were unsuccessful. Weidel is annoyed that he has to go at it again, but he doesn’t show it. She seems controlled, this time there are no harsh statements or even outbursts of anger, which are reported from time to time.

The chairwoman knows how important the photos are for this federal election. Weidel will appear on posters and flyers for the first time as her party’s candidate for chancellor. Oskar Strauss, the head of the advertising agency commissioned, demands three poses: visionary, determined – and please be very friendly.

“I know what I want and I want it now,” Culture Beat echoes through the conference room in the Bundestag, which has to serve as a short-term backdrop. Weidel is clearly enjoying himself. She got the trick of playing the old “Bravo” hits of her youth to get the “very friendly” facial expression from an experienced model. This time Strauss is enthusiastic about the pictures. As usual, the AfD leader’s hair is tied tightly back. And as usual, she’s wearing a blazer with her pants, underneath a white shirt with the collar open wide enough to show her white pearl necklace.

The recognition effect is intentional. Like Angela Merkel or Sahra Wagenknecht, Weidel has also made itself into a political brand. Now she also gets the appropriate title: candidate for chancellor. The presentation is planned for this Saturday morning in Berlin, with the framework being a meeting between the Federal Executive Board and the state leaders. In mid-January, the federal party conference in Riesa only has to formally confirm the personnel.

It’s a strange premiere. The AfD is nominating a candidate for chancellor – even though Alice Weidel cannot become chancellor. At least not this year, in this universe. No other German party wants to work with it in the Bundestag, let alone govern together. And the AfD is very far from an absolute majority, with poll numbers of 17 to 19 percent.

But this demographic argument can also be reversed. After all, the AfD has been consistently ahead of the Chancellor’s SPD and the Greens in surveys for months. “We are the second strongest force and therefore we have a claim to government,” . Especially: A candidacy for chancellor promises more media attention and underlines the claim to be invited to TV election rounds.

And from Weidel’s point of view, it shouldn’t stay that way. The chairwoman wants to make the party more modern in terms of content, organize it more professionally and give it a new visual image. The aim is to be ready for connection after the 2029 federal election at the latest. For Weidel, modern means: extremely tough on migration, internal security anyway, in European and foreign policy – but a little softer in family and social policy.

Other far-right parties in Europe serve as role models here. However, the AfD is not yet following it completely: the first version of the election program contains tough formulations on the subject of abortion – even tougher than in the basic program.

So the chairwoman still has a lot to do in terms of party renovation. A central theme: women. Even though she is against gender quotas, she wants to promote women in the AfD more strongly with a mentoring program. When it comes to this question, she sometimes publicly argues with party officials.

When the Brandenburg state leader René Springer recently declared at a press conference in view of the lack of women in the AfD that “fighting is in the blood” of men, Weidel publicly brushed him off. She sees it “completely differently,” she said. “Women are just as fighters as men, they are in no way inferior!”

In short, Weidel wants to harmonize the candidate for chancellor with the associated party. Because she is a woman who is raising two children with a woman who was born in Sri Lanka, and in Switzerland too.

The gap between her private life and her political activity also concerns her emotionally. “Sarah, I love you,” she recently called out to her wife at an event in Zurich, who was sitting in the audience, according to the “Tages-Anzeiger”. And she talked about how difficult family life was: “”

With Weidel, the private is political in every respect. This is particularly true for a partly right-wing extremist party like the AfD. At party conferences she sometimes left the stage when homophobic remarks came from the lectern.

The harmonization between the candidate for chancellor and the party also applies to public appearances. Weidel suffers from the staid, often tasteless atmosphere of many party meetings. In the future, all AfD events, be they campaign rallies, party conferences or press conferences, should have a uniform, contemporary look. The party will invest some money in this.

And the AfD should also adapt to its candidate for chancellor in terms of power politics. After a decade of fighting and scheming, Weidel is the undisputed number one in the party. It has a clear majority on the federal executive board, it has also united its long-notoriously divisive home state association in Baden-Württemberg behind it, and internal opponents have been systematically sidelined.

For Weidel’s co-chair Tino Chrupalla, this doesn’t just mean that he is number two. It is also likely to disempower him in the medium term. He will probably keep the co-chairmanship of the new parliamentary group. But internally in the party, Weidel has long supported those who favor a leadership of one plus general secretary.

Not only the network around Bundestag faction deputy Sebastian Münzenmaier is promoting this model, but also the former “wing” around Björn Höcke. Weidel’s midterm motto seems borrowed from the Highlander films: There can only be one.

But first, at least one federal election must be successfully completed. “So, Oskar, what do we do now?” the AfD boss asks the agency boss during the photo session. Jennifer Lopez’s “Let’s Get Loud” blares from the loudspeaker.

Two camera teams accompany the AfD photo shoot: one of our own and one from a television station for a documentary. This is probably why Weidel remains so controlled. She answers questions from a reporter almost in the AfD language she has practiced over the years.

Then the music stops. Instead of friendliness, determination is now required for the picture. And the future candidate for chancellor delivers. “Leave your head exactly the same, but look a little to the left,” asks agency boss Oskar Strauss. But Weidel refuses. “No, no,” she replies, “your eyes have to follow your nose.” Weidel also brushes off another attempt to convince her. “The look has to be straight,” she decrees. Then she smiles coldly.