AfD faction leader Gögel: The boorishness discarded

Created: 04/08/2022Updated: 04/08/2022 13:26

Bernd Gögel speaks at a state parliament session in the plenary hall at the lectern.

© Christoph Schmidt/dpa

For years, the AfD group was considered a chaos troop dominated by factional fights, which even provided for police operations in the state parliament.

Those times are over, says parliamentary group leader Gögel.

He thinks his troupe is more mature and more serious than it was then.

Stuttgart - After fights, intrigues and chaos in the past, the AfD faction has become more professional, according to its old and new chairman Bernd Gögel.

"We have not adapted, but we behave more professionally in the state parliament," said the 67-year-old on Friday of the German Press Agency in Stuttgart immediately after his re-election as parliamentary group leader.

Gögel reported that the deputies had voted for him with a large majority.

There was no opposing candidate.

He did not want to reveal how many of the 17 MPs voted for him.

The meeting went smoothly.

The entire board should be elected in Stuttgart on Friday.

Before Gögel was elected chairman, the parliamentary group had decided that the board should again have seven members.

For many years, an open power struggle raged within the faction between moderate forces and supporters of the right-wing fringe.

Gögel is considered to be more moderate in the AfD and entered the state election campaign as the top candidate for the AfD.

His opponent is the former faction deputy Emil Sänze from the völkisch-national camp.

He only described the new faction as too adapted and streamlined in the summer of 2021.

The AfD must show a clear edge, provoke and become louder again.

The AfD suffered heavy losses in the 2021 state elections.

Compared to the 2016 election, the share of votes fell by 5.4 points to 9.7 percent.

She still has 17 seats in the state parliament - 6 fewer than before.

After fierce power struggles and resignations, only 15 MPs with AfD mandates were left at the end of the last legislative period.

In recent years, the faction has made headlines mainly with internal quarrels and provocations.

The then AfD MP Stefan Räpple was led out of the state parliament in December 2018 after heckling by the police - a historic scandal.

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At the beginning of the new legislature, Gögel had promised a different way of dealing with parliament.

The AfD MPs have also been much more cautious than in previous years.

There are still different basic currents in the parliamentary group - as in every party, said Gögel on Friday.

But that no longer leads to upheavals among MPs.

"In the meantime, we distinguish between the factual discussion and boorishness," said Gögel.

"We put them down - much faster than the Greens put them down at the time."

Gögel said that after the pandemic had retreated, the parliamentary group had to go back out onto the streets and into the inns and talk to people.

The AfD is a movement party.

The AfD wants to reach young people in particular, said Gögel, also with a view to the recently adopted new state electoral law, after 16 and 17-year-olds are now also allowed to take part in state elections.

The AfD had voted against the electoral reform.

dpa