internal power struggle
AfD chairman Meuthen resigns and leaves the party
The longtime AfD chairman Jörg Meuthen
© Filip Singer / Getty Images
Jörg Meuthen leaves the AfD. The move doesn’t really come as a surprise. The AfD boss has been strangers to his party for a long time.
The long-standing AfD chairman Jörg Meuthen is turning his back on the party. He informed the federal office that he would resign and leave the AfD, Meuthen said on Friday when asked. had previously WDR, NDR and the ARD capital studio reported. The 60-year-old wants to retain his mandate in the European Parliament.
Longtime AfD boss Meuthen: “I see very clearly totalitarian echoes”
In his opinion, parts of the party are not based on the free democratic basic order, he said according to ARD – “I see very clearly totalitarian echoes there”. At best, he sees a future for the AfD as an East German regional party.
Meuthen had been at odds with his party for a long time. In the past two years, the economist has repeatedly advocated a more moderate course for the AfD. In doing so, he made enemies, especially in the right-wing movement around the Thuringian state chief Björn Höcke.
Most recently, there had not always been majorities for Meuthen’s proposals in the party executive. In August, for example, the attempt to apply for the expulsion of the North Rhine-Westphalian AfD Bundestag candidate Matthias Helferich failed.
Meuthen was elected as one of two co-chairs in the summer of 2015, at the side of Frauke Petry, who left the party a good two years later. While the relationship between the two was considered tense, Meuthen got along well with the later co-chairman Alexander Gauland for a long time. The relationship between Meuthen and Tino Chrupalla, who is now the sole leader of the party, was difficult from the very beginning.