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Delegates to the 21st state party conference of the Alternative for Germany NRW hold signs in the air with the words: “Become an AfD member, our country first”.
© Thomas Banneyer/dpa
The AfD NRW remains loyal to its state chairman Martin Vincentz.
The 37-year-old doctor wants to give the party a moderate image
Marl - The moderate chairman of the North Rhine-Westphalia AfD, Martin Vincentz, will lead the state party for another two years.
A party conference in Marl on Saturday re-elected the 37-year-old doctor to lead the AfD NRW with 78.33 percent of the vote.
According to the party, it was the best result to date in the election of a state chairman in North Rhine-Westphalia.
Vincentz wants to take action against extremist forces in the NRW state association and with this course managed to rally the delegates behind him without excessive debates and arguments.
470 delegates voted for Vincentz, 130 against him and 18 abstained.
Unlike in his first election two years ago, the incumbent party leader did not have an opposing candidate.
The party conference in an event hall in Marl was accompanied by loud demonstrations and protests against the AfD, which, according to police figures, were attended by around 2,000 people.
Vincentz is targeting the federal election
The father of two daughters has been state leader of the NRW-AfD since February 2022 and also leads the state parliamentary group.
In his application speech, Vincentz swore his state association would achieve strong results in the NRW local elections and the 2025 federal election.
The right-wing populist AfD got 5.4 percent in the state elections in North Rhine-Westphalia in May 2022.
Surveys recently saw the AfD in the most populous federal state at 13 to 15 percent.
According to Vincentz, the AfD NRW currently has around 7,050 members; in 2022 there were still around 4,750.
Almost 2,000 applications for membership are currently being processed.
This means that the AfD is still by far the smallest party in North Rhine-Westphalia.
The eloquent state chairman is also said to have federal political ambitions for a future chairmanship of the federal AfD.
He told the delegates that the state presidency was “the second best job in the world” after the federal presidency.
Due to its size, the NRW state association is the “significant building block for a strong parliamentary group”.
Vincentz emphasized his successes in increasing the number of members since the 2022 state elections, which were the “political freezing point” for the party in North Rhine-Westphalia.
He wants to turn the AfD into a “modern conservative right-wing party”.
He said to the applause of the delegates that he did not want performances by “drag queens” in kindergartens or “Sharia police” in schoolyards.
He sharply criticized the government's Corona protection measures at the time.
Children should never be locked up at home again.
Vincentz rejected the accusation made by North Rhine-Westphalia Prime Minister Hendrik Wüst (CDU), who described the AfD as a “Nazi party”.
The opposite is the case.
“There are people here who have genuine and genuine concern for the country.”
Against attacks “from within”
Vincentz called on the party to act “coolly and cleverly” in view of the debate about a ban on the AfD and the classification of the AfD youth organization in North Rhine-Westphalia as a suspected right-wing extremist case by the state Office for the Protection of the Constitution.
The Office for the Protection of the Constitution is an “enemy” and “far stronger” than the AfD.
There is no point in the AfD “running patriotically to its own destruction with a saber drawn.”
At the same time, Vincentz announced that within the party he would not allow “individual elements that repeatedly provoke to damage our party.”
Not only the attacks on the AfD from outside, but also the “attacks from within” are major challenges.
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A solidarity motion from several delegates in support of the Junge Alternative NRW was relegated to the back of the party conference agenda.
This was seen as a defeat for the extremist camp in the NRW AfD.
But other sounds were also heard in the speeches at the party conference.
The former state party leader Rüdiger Lucassen called for people to take a front against what he described as the “politically exploited Office for the Protection of the Constitution”.
“The Office for the Protection of the Constitution must not be a benchmark for us,” said Lucassen.
dpa