Sänze reaches for power again: AfD facing a shift to the right?

Created: 2022-12-03Updated: 2022-12-03, 2:01 p.m

The politician Emil Sänze at a press conference.

© Tom Weller/dpa/archive image

Because he will soon have to answer in court, Bernd Gögel wants to resign as AfD parliamentary group leader.

His longtime rival wants to take his place.

If Emil Sänze comes to power, the parliamentary group is likely to be even sharper in the future - and much more right-wing.

Stuttgart - AfD state party leader Emil Sänze reaches for the group chairmanship again.

The 72-year-old told the German Press Agency in Stuttgart that he wanted to stand for re-election in mid-January and thus succeed Bernd Gögel.

Gögel had announced his resignation a few days ago because of a penalty order due to allegations of undeclared work.

Sänze said he thought it would be good if the offices of party and parliamentary group leadership were combined.

"This gives increased clout, a lot of synergy effects and less friction losses."

For years, a power struggle raged among the AfD deputies between moderate forces and supporters of the right-wing fringe.

While Gögel always had a relatively moderate and bourgeois-conservative image, Sänze was assigned to the völkisch-national camp.

He previously held the office of parliamentary group deputy and is currently the parliamentary secretary of the group.

The 72-year-old also announced that if he were elected, he would lead the group on a louder and tougher course.

"We're getting louder - but with suggestions, not naughtiness," he said.

If you want to get things done, you have to present them in a dedicated manner.

And: "We are the smallest, we have to be a bit louder than others, we want to be heard."

You have to know: In recent years, the AfD faction has been seen as a chaos troop dominated by factional fights, which even caused police operations in the state parliament.

Most recently, more calm had returned both internally and externally - also because the loudest disruptors are no longer in parliament.

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

This course was too lax for Sänze: in the summer of 2021 he had described the faction as too adapted and streamlined - the AfD had to show a clear edge, provoke and become louder again.

But Sänze doesn't want to hear anything about a shift to the right.

"This talk from right and left gets on my nerves," he told the dpa.

The AfD parliamentary group has conservative approaches, but also liberal and "so-called left-wing" proposals for solutions, such as pension policy and the recognition of lifetime achievement.

Migration policy is particularly important to him: "This constant talk that you can't be expelled cannot be undercut in terms of ridiculousness."

The state association of the AfD has already made a significant shift to the right.

Since early summer, Sänze has been leading the state association together with Markus Frohnmaier, member of the Bundestag, who co-founded the youth organization "Junge Alternative".

"With Emil Sänze, the parliamentary group would get a chairman who is reliable in internal cooperation and who gives fresh impetus to the outside world," said Frohnmaier.

"I would be happy if his group colleagues would elect him as chairman."

It is unclear to what extent the directional struggle in the faction is now gaining momentum again.

Also what chances Sänze has.

It is not the first time that he has reached for the group chairmanship: in April he lost to Gögel in the elections for the group executive committee, reportedly it was a close race.

Younger MPs have been calling for a generational change at the top of the parliamentary group for a long time.

According to media reports, Udo Stein (39) also wants to stand as a candidate at the parliamentary group meeting in mid-January.

dpa