Almost exactly a year ago they were already sitting here in the conference room in the state parliament: MPs of the AfD, on a confrontation course for their own leadership. At that time, the AfD’s autumn retreat was broken off in a dispute, and it was not even possible to agree on an agenda. The internal opposition invited the press separately and cursed the “wagon castle mentality” and the “riot circus” in the leadership around Katrin Ebner-Steiner and Ingo Hahn, and announced that they would be voted out as soon as possible. On Friday, the new parliamentary group leaders Christian Klingen and Ulrich Singer are sitting here again with the completely renewed six-member board. Palace revolt succeeded the previous evening.
The change has been brewing for a long time, in a power struggle with constantly new volts. It is also about political shadows, the previous board was shaped by the ethnic “wing”, the new leadership counts quite moderate minds for AfD conditions. But it was always about personal noise, also about “authoritarian style of leadership and wrong strategies”, Ebner-Steiner stuck to the office without any support “like a burdock”. A two-thirds majority would have been necessary for voting out in between; with regular new elections, like now, the simple one is sufficient. Eleven of 19.
So that’s where they sit: Ulrich Singer (constituency Donau-Ries) and Christian Klingen (Kitzingen), one lawyer and social politician, the other administrative administrator and member of the environmental committee. In addition, Gerd Mannes and Franz Bergmüller, vice-leaders of the parliamentary group, and Andreas Winhart and Markus Bayerbach as parliamentary directors. Is everything different? At least the style. The press could ask anything, “really anything,” it was said in advance. In more than two years, the old top barely held press meetings and if you asked Ingo Hahn about internal matters, he said no, so horrified, as if you had asked about slippage.
AfD wants to be a “national-friendly party”
There should be dialogue and transparency in the future, and the new board of directors will fix the program and strategy. “We want to show that we are not a so-called one-topic party,” says Klingen, but rather offer “a wide range of sensible solutions”. Also as a “national-friendly party”. Inquiry from a report: Does that mean, conversely, xenophobic? “Do something for your own people, for your own people”, adds the new boss – this includes not sending so much money to Brussels. Smaller companies need “air to breathe”, says Franz Bergmüller, restaurateur and real estate entrepreneur, “the ax to the bureaucracy” should be put on. Gerd Mannes criticizes the “totally screwed up energy transition”, including the “planned economy”. Winhart shoots himself at the free voters. He noted, for example Corona and probably as a lesson from the federal elections that people like Hubert Aiwanger “fished in our pond”, they had to withdraw “the fishing license” from him. They now want to work “more efficiently” and, as the AfD, also “become significantly more Bavarian”.
Three questions are open after the tabula rasa evening at the AfD. First: Singer and Klingen are so far hardly known, unlike their vice: Mannes has influence in the AfD through the state executive, ex-CSU member Bergmüller has long been known as a pub lobbyist and smoking ban rebel. How did the division in the group of eleven come about? In response to the question, Bergmüller emphasizes “teamwork”; no one is “particularly emphasized”. Second, can you still work together after all the injuries? Singer was really hurt once when a window shattered in the clinch of a session. His door is always open, he says, and any of the 19 MPs can get involved.
Third question: what makes the leadership tick politically? Von Klingen had close ties with Björn Höcke from earlier years, but he is now at a distance from the “wing” boss. “You keep developing,” he says, and “we’re here in Bavaria”. From the rest of the board – with the exception of Winhart, who also likes to escalate during election campaign speeches – there are probably no quotes that extend beyond right-wing populism into extremism. No group of known radical skis. What that means? People like Winhart emphasize that the other parliamentary groups will not be “ingratiated”. On the contrary, they should finally put aside “exclusion” and “blockade attitude”.
Apparently the change of power was civilized, “harmonious”, says Singer. Unlike in the past: no screaming fits to be heard through the thick door, no night-taros. Ebner-Steiner wished “a lucky hand” that evening, promised unity. With her mandate she dedicates herself to work for Lower Bavaria. Is that enough for you? There will soon be a state party conference in Greding, including new elections. In AfD circles it is rumored that there is some ambition for party positions from the ranks of the parliamentary group.