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AfD politicians Alexander Gauland and Jörg Meuthen (in 2018): Dispute over the direction of the party
Photo: JOHN MACDOUGALL / AFP
It was not just a personnel decision, but a directional decision: Alice Weidel and Tino Chrupalla are supposed to lead the AfD in the federal election campaign.
71 percent of the participants voted for the co-parliamentary group leader and the co-party leader in an online member survey.
The duo Joana Cotar and Joachim Wundrak received only 27 percent, despite the support of the second party leader Jörg Meuthen.
The AfD honorary chairman Alexander Gauland, together with Weidel at the head of the parliamentary group in the Bundestag, sees the vote as a message.
"Normally, such a decision would not be a question of victory or defeat for a party leader," Gauland told SPIEGEL.
Because of the support for Cotar and Wundrak, Meuthen had to "take her defeat into account".
Gauland and Meuthen have quarreled over the question of the direction of the AfD.
In contrast to Cotar and Wundrak, Weidel and Chrupalla also relied on the völkisch-nationalist wing of the party in the internal power struggle.
Gauland was amazed that Meuthen had relied on Cotar and Wundrak, who were largely unknown within the party.
“I foresaw the result like this.
It was clear to me that the candidate election would not be a close one.
So I was all the more surprised by Meuthen's positioning, ”said Gauland.
Gauland also accused the party leader of "having recently done nothing to bring the party together".
This is an allusion to the fact that Meuthen opened the way for online surveys through a board decision.
Originally, opponents of Meuthen wanted the duo Weidel / Chrupalla to vote at the federal party conference in Dresden in April.
But before that, in a survey carried out by Meuthen and the board of directors, the members had spoken out in favor of a basic decision about the top duo.
The result was only announced last Tuesday.
It is clear that the vote for the duo Weidel / Chrupalla does not strengthen Meuthen's position in the party.
The AfD is expected to re-elect its leadership at a federal party congress in November, and Meuthen and Chrupalla have been chairmen with equal rights since autumn 2019.
Gauland describes renewed candidacy as parliamentary group leader as unlikely
Gauland called it "just reading coffee grounds" as to whether Meuthen could remain party leader in the fall.
But the candidate election showed one thing: "Particularly skillful, ironically noted, he did not do it." Meuthen and the entire party leadership should put their personal sensitivities at the back of the election campaign.
Personally, Gauland, 80, apparently no longer has any major political ambitions.
He described a renewed candidacy as co-parliamentary group leader after the federal election as "rather unlikely" and "not a good idea".
Weidel and Chrupalla, according to the honorary chairman, would have "the right to access the parliamentary group chairman" after the federal election.
It was no different with Weidel and him in 2017 as the top candidates at the time.
The AfD entered the Bundestag for the first time in the 2017 federal election with 12.6 percent of the vote, making it the largest opposition party. In surveys, the party is currently usually slightly below this value.
