AfD-Cehf Meuthen throws down: exit

Created: 2022-01-28Updated: 2022-01-28 15:54

The longtime AfD chairman Jörg Meuthen leaves the party.

© Kay Nietfeld/dpa

And another one is gone: Like Bernd Lucke and Frauke Petry before him, Jörg Meuthen also draws a line.

His departure is not really surprising.

The AfD boss has been strangers to his party for a long time.

Berlin – The longtime AfD chairman Jörg Meuthen has left the party.

Meuthen said on Friday that he had informed the federal office that he was resigning as party chairman with immediate effect and would be leaving the AfD.

The 60-year-old wants to retain his mandate in the European Parliament.

Shortly thereafter, the federal executive of the party declared that it was "with regret" that Meuthen had left the party and thanked him "for the further development of the AfD as the only opposition party in Germany".

The sole party leader is now the previous co-chairman Tino Chrupalla until the new party leadership is elected.

"See totalitarian echoes"

In his opinion, parts of the party are not based on the free democratic basic order, Meuthen said, according to WDR, NDR and the ARD capital studio, which first reported on the exit - "I see very clearly totalitarian echoes there".

At best, he sees a future for the AfD as an East German regional party.

Meuthen has recently criticized the positions of some party officials in the corona pandemic.

Although he had himself vaccinated against the virus, he was vehemently opposed to compulsory vaccination.

The economist emphasized that he had no understanding for AfD politicians who fantasized about a “corona dictatorship”.

He has long been concerned that some top party officials, in his view, did not take seriously enough the possibility that the AfD might be observed as a suspected right-wing extremist, against which the AfD is defending itself legally.

Weidel criticizes Meuthen

The leader of the AfD parliamentary group, Alice Weidel, suspects a connection between the exit and the lifting of Meuthen's immunity for an investigation by the responsible committee in the EU Parliament the day before.

The procedure is said to be related to the AfD donation scandal.

Weidel says: "It is noticeable that the resignation of the party and the lifting of Jörg Meuthen's immunity in the European Parliament are closely related." of which he was chairman for so many years”.

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Meuthen had been at odds with his party for a long time.

In October he announced that he would no longer run for the presidency in the new party leadership elections originally planned for December.

The party conference was then finally canceled with reference to the government measures to contain the corona pandemic.

It should be made up for this year.

Enemies in your own camp

In the past two years, Meuthen has repeatedly advocated a more moderate course for the AfD.

In doing so, he made enemies, especially in the right-wing movement around the Thuringian state chief Björn Höcke.

Most recently, there were no longer any majorities for Meuthen's proposals on the federal executive board.

In August, for example, the attempt to apply for the expulsion of the North Rhine-Westphalian AfD Bundestag candidate Matthias Helferich failed.

One of Meuthen's opponents, deputy party leader Stephan Brandner, welcomes the party's exit.

"I think it's a good decision and also consistent," says Brandner.

"He did a great job for the party in the first four years, unfortunately he later tore down what he had built there," says the Thuringian member of the Bundestag.

Meuthen was elected as one of two co-chairs in the summer of 2015, at that time alongside Frauke Petry, who left the party a good two years later, citing a shift to the right of the AfD that she perceived.

While the relationship between the two was considered tense, Meuthen got along well with the later co-chairman Alexander Gauland for a long time.

The relationship between Meuthen and Tino Chrupalla was difficult from the very beginning.

dpa