Election campaign for Bundestag: AfD starts without top candidates

Meuthen’s next move in the power struggle with the AfD: At the party conference in April, no top candidates for the federal election should be elected – to the displeasure of Chrupalla and Weidel.

 The  AfD federal executive decided in the morning not to put up any top candidates at the upcoming party congress and thus to start the election campaign without them. This emerges from the provisional agenda for the federal party conference in Dresden in mid-April, which the federal executive board set in its meeting today. This agenda is the ARD capital studio in front. At the party convention, the AfD wants to adopt its federal election program.

Martin Schmidt
ARD capital studio

@SchmidtLev

Federal spokesman Jörg Meuthen justified the step, which was surprising for many in the party, with the fact that not all AfD state associations had voted their electoral lists by mid-April. It is “logical” that only then can the top candidates be placed. “Anything else would be a blatant distortion of competition,” he explains ARD capital studyo.  The  top candidates should then be determined later, ideally by primary election, so Meuthen’s idea.

Criticism of Chrupallas

His partner at the top of the party, Tino Chrupalla, sees it fundamentally differently: “I would have liked the federal executive to let the party congress decide how the AfD goes into the federal election campaign,” he says ARD capital studio.  The  members should not be overlooked on such an important issue, said Chrupalla. Chrupalla is said to have ambitions to run together with parliamentary group leader Alice Weidel as a top duo for the federal election.

Power struggle in full swing

From the environment of the federal executive it is said that Meuthen is trying to prevent precisely these two with his approach.  The  decision today shows how the power struggle in the AfD is still in full swing. Meuthen is still at the fore because he and his confidants have a comfortable majority on the federal executive board.

Even as co-federal spokesman, Chrupalla has no choice but to complain publicly about Meuthen’s actions. Alice Weidel is said to have tried to change the agenda for the party congress in the conference call that morning, but no one except her board colleagues Chrupalla, Stephan Brandner and Stephan Protschka agreed to her.

Meuthen’s primary election idea

“ The  members and voters expect the AfD to go into the federal election campaign with top candidates,” Weidel said ARD capital studio. For the currently largest opposition party in the Bundestag, only that is professional. Some people around them consider Meuthen’s primary election idea “absurd”. It is completely unclear when this could take place and how much time it would take. “We don’t need any more top candidates in August either,” they say.

Jörg Meuthen himself had announced for a long time that he would not run for the Bundestag. Some in the party suspect that he would now regret it. Because a top duo could overtake him in public for months. And at the end of the year, it’s not just about the Bundestag election: as party leader, he will have to face a possible re-election shortly afterwards. Meuthen’s internal party opponents, the camp of the right-wing extremist “wing”, meanwhile firmly expect that an application will be made at the party congress to elect the top candidates on site.