The Rhineland-Palatinate AfD party and parliamentary group chairman Michael Frisch regrets the withdrawal of long-time party leader Jörg Meuthen.
"He was the bourgeois-conservative-liberal figurehead of the AfD, which has tied voters to us, especially in the West," said Frisch of the German press agency in Mainz.
"I hope, wish and will also work in the party to find a successor who will continue this course of Jörg Meuthen," stressed Frisch.
Mainz - "Because from my point of view there is no alternative to keeping the party on a realpolitical course." Meuthen had a clear majority for this course and he would like this to be the case in the future, said Frisch.
This is an opportunity for the AfD to reposition itself and bring fresh faces forward.
He thinks the Hessian AfD politician Joana Cotar and Joachim Wundrak from Lower Saxony are very suitable.
"I would be very happy if they were ready now," said Frisch.
"It should be someone who represents the West by now." He himself is not available.
"I am busy with my tasks in Rhineland-Palatinate, and for reasons of age I do not see myself at the federal level," said the 64-year-old.
Wundrak and Cotar were inferior to Alice Weidel and Tino Chrupalla in the election of the top candidates for the federal election.
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dpa
