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Election campaign of the Thuringian AFD leading candidate Höcke: Thuringian sausages

2019-10-22T17:01:57.378Z


Thuringia's AfD has focused its entire election campaign on Björn Höcke - but he sometimes stages himself as a sensitive diva. Shortly before the election, the volkisch Right Wing is increasingly thin-skinned.



Cotton candy and cold beer are available at the AfD in these weeks. 21 so-called family celebrations have organized the right-wing populists in Thuringia for their election campaign. 21 times bratwurst, beer, cotton candy - and the speeches of Björn Höcke. The AfD has tailored their campaign completely to him.

For example, in Eisenach, on a Thursday, a few weeks before the election on October 27. On the market of Lutherstadt drive two dark sedans. Höcke, the right-wing top candidate, gets out, is directly shielded from his entourage. Quick step it goes over the marketplace.

Cobblestone instead of red carpet

Höcke seems to stare straight ahead. Like a Hollywood star refusing paparazzi. Here in Eisenach, this seems surreal. Lifted. Because Höcke does not walk on red carpet, but on Thuringian cobblestones.

What stands out: The closer the election date comes, the more hectic and stressed Höcke looks. In most cases, he must also address vociferous demonstrators on the squares of Thuringia.

In recent years, it has brought the state politician Höcke to nationwide reputation. In 2014, Höcke took a leave of absence as a secondary school teacher in Hesse because he became a member of parliament in Thuringia. Back then, it was precisely the arrival of the AfD in the Thuringian state parliament for majorities that made possible for the first time a left-prime minister in Germany. Höcke, whose connections go far back into the intellectual right-wing milieu, quickly advanced in the AfD as a representative of the folk-nationalist current, the "wing" network.

Former party leaders worked on him in the dispute. But just now, in the year of the Eastern elections, in which dominated by right-wing AfD national associations celebrated success, it could be complicated for Höcke.

After all, he lost in the party to influence, instead, the focus shifted to other Strippenzieher, especially the Brandenburg AfD boss Andreas Kalbitz.

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Höcke remains Thuringia, the national association stands behind him. Yet. In the last polls the values ​​of Höckes AfD are decreasing. Will the party land below 22 percent in the election? And thus among the successes of Brandenburg and Saxony?

Then, in the Thuringian AfD, many would wonder if Höcke does not harm more than he brings. According to ZDF Politbarometer the 47-year-old is the least popular top candidate. Even among AfD supporters his values ​​are comparatively low.

His election events, his speeches are always based on a similar pattern. Höcke speaks just under an hour, accompanied by the whistling concert of the counter-demonstrators:

  • The standard program includes billing with the current climate policy. Höcke refers to the "Fridays for Future" protests as an example of "infantilisation of German politics".
  • For this he serves a classic scenario of fear, in the climate, this is the supposedly upcoming blackout. Without electricity come the "break of civilization", after which not even the toilet flush works.
  • The second block is mostly about migration policy. Europe must be thought of as a "fortress", so it needs a "deportation initiative 2020". The "further Africanization and orientalization of Thuringia and Germany" must be stopped.
  • In the final Höcken finally asks: "Let's get back our country". It follows the national anthem.

After the speech in Eisenach, some people approach the stage, Höcke kneels down, allows selfies. But a politician to touch is not Höcke, which is also clear here quickly. Sullenly he shows a trailer on the phone how he sets the right camera mode. Höckes bath in the crowd takes only a few minutes, he hardly loses a word. It is visibly uncomfortable for him to go to the people.

The AfD is the only party in Thuringia, which puts so strong in the election campaign on the presence in the market places. The potential in the filter bubbles is increasingly exhausted, analyzed AfD strategists. "We have to get out of the Whatsapp and Facebook bubble," Höcke also demanded before the election campaign.

But in the meantime, he himself gives the impression that he is the wrong person for this strategy.

No more interviews

In the media, he recently attracted attention with a performance on ZDF, where he threatened the critical questioning journalist with consequences. The "Thüringer Allgemeine" printed an empty page instead of an interview after Höcke canceled the appointment without explanation. Höcke is annoyed regularly that the local section does not report on his bicycle tours in the constituency. Now he wants to give temporarily no more interviews. Höcke has become a diva, he has become sensitive, sees himself as a victim.

Seen from the outside, the former figurehead of the right seems increasingly irritated. He has just hired a new office manager to manage him: Robert Teske. The former head of the Junge Alternative (JA) in Bremen worked until the end of 2018 in the office of the local AFD spokesman Frank Magnitz.

Teske and his Bremen JA-Landesverband belong to the environment of the Identitarian Movement. The report of the Bremen state protection agency 2018 states:

"In Bremen, the youth organization 'Young Alternative' (JA) of the party 'Alternative for Germany' (AfD) is observed in particular because of their xenophobic and anti-Muslim and völkisch nationalist statements and their connections to the right-wing extremist 'identities' since September 2018.

Bremen's AfD national association therefore demanded the dissolution of its own youth organization, which Robert Teske did not want. Now Höcke got the hardliner to Thuringia. Even though the AfD lead candidate is trying to moderate more and more, its positioning on the far right wing leaves no doubt. In addition, demonstrators last judged that they may call Höcke "fascist".

Höcke had lost his former office manager when he had unsuccessfully run for a list place for the state elections. As it says in the AfD, he had requested support from Höcke - but this had come much too late.

Despite the attempt of moderation, Höcke always has the right messages for connoisseurs. A few weeks ago, the AfD showed a special poster: humps with the hands behind the back of the head, leaning back. Then the sentence: "You are against him, because he is for you."

The poster is a quote from Jörg Haider, the former chairman of the right-wing populist FPÖ. The pose, the saying - all this was already the case with Haider. Höcke apparently sees himself in the role of a German Haider. The real Haider renounced in 2000 to a government office so that his party could co-organize with the Christian Social ÖVP in Vienna.

Paving the way for a coalition - a fate that might also be pinnacles?

So there were already high-ranking CDU representatives in Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt and Brandenburg, who brought a cooperation with the AfD as an option into play. In Thuringia repeated CDU lead candidate Mike Mohring over and over again that he rejects any cooperation with the AfD. However, five years ago, he himself felt cautious.

At least at the base, some publicize: The conservative, but not really influential CDU politician Vera Lengsfeld was in Thuringia recently distribute a booklet in 500,000 mailboxes, in which she openly with other politicians on the right edge of the CDU reflections on an alliance of CDU and AfD hired. A coalition of the two parties is possible in perspective, they believe. But there is one condition for this, they write: Höcke must go away.

Source: spiegel

All news articles on 2019-10-22

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