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Former AfD leader Jörg Meuthen, in the German Center Party since June: "Completely relaxed" (photo from September 27)
Photo: Matthias Schrader/AP
For the former AfD boss Jörg Meuthen, the start in his new political home began with a defeat.
The »German Center Party« will not stand in the Lower Saxony state elections on October 9th.
The smallest conservative party missed the 2000 support signatures required for admission, which must be submitted to the state election committee.
He sees it as "completely relaxed," Meuthen explained to SPIEGEL.
His party was able to collect “over 1,000 signatures in what is still a very small state association, despite significant Covid-related problems”.
The "revival of the center" is a "long-term project that we are deliberately tackling step by step," says the 61-year-old.
When he announced his accession to the new party in Berlin in June, the MEP declared that the collection of signatures was looking "very, very good".
But even a video message from Meuthen and his wife on social media, which was aimed at Germans of Russian origin, among other things, apparently did not bring a boost in Lower Saxony in the summer.
For Meuthen, however, the non-admission is "not a broken leg", the "important elections are yet to come".
Center with an ex-AfD MP in the Bundestag
Meuthen turned his back on the AfD at the end of January after more than six years as co-chairman.
He justified this with the increasing legal course of the party.
In mid-June he announced his entry into the Center Party.
The center was once one of the mainstays of the Weimar Republic and was considered a collective movement of political Catholicism, but lost importance after 1945, mainly due to competition from the CDU.
Your current number of members is manageable.
When Meuthen announced his entry at a press conference in June, center treasurer Hans-Joachim Woitzik said the party had “exceeded 500 members nationwide”.
The German Center Party was not admitted to the Bundestag elections last year because it had not submitted an annual report that met the legal requirements for six years.
Nevertheless, as of this spring, the party is represented in the Bundestag for the first time since 1957 - with the accession of former AfD MP Uwe Witt.
