Election of the Federal President: a meager result for Max Otte – politics

On Sunday afternoon one could briefly get the impression that Max Otte had changed his mind after all. When the President of the Bundestag Bärbel Bas read out the names of the candidates for the office of the highest state office in the Paul-Löbe-Haus at the beginning of the Federal Assembly, one of the four prepared candidate places in the gallery remained empty. The cameras in the Bundestag searched in vain for the fund manager who ran for the AfD in the election.

The fund manager reappeared later. However, his absence at the crucial moment of the election meant that the candidacy was a total failure. Revelations about Otte’s donations to the district association of AfD federal spokesman Tino Chrupalla in the amount of 20,000 euros triggered outrage. The CDU withdrew all membership rights from the controversial former head of the Union of Values ​​at the end of January because of his candidacy for the right-wing party.

After the end of the counting of all more than 1400 votes in the Federal Assembly, it became clear: the fuss about Otte’s candidacy had consequences. In the end, the candidate with 140 votes did not even get as many votes as the AfD electors had in the Federal Assembly (151).

The hopes for a completely different result in the AfD leadership had been great until recently. A few days ago, party leader Tino Chrupalla had hopefully written to the grassroots that Otte’s candidacy offered the AfD a “special opportunity” to send a signal beyond its own party and to get “more votes” in the Federal Assembly. But nothing came of the rapprochement with the Union and the catching of votes in the conservative camp.

“Doubts about strategic abilities” of the party leader

According to information from parliamentary group circles, dissatisfaction in the AfD with the remaining party leader, who also leads the parliamentary group together with Alice Weidel, has grown in the past few days because of the personnel. There are serious “doubts about his strategic abilities,” said AfD MPs.

In January, Chrupalla had pushed through Otte almost single-handedly against internal party resistance and finally fell out with the previous co-boss Jörg Meuthen from the moderate camp by AfD standards. Meuthen, who had strictly rejected Otte’s candidacy and advocated a different form of candidate selection, resigned from the party only a few days later, duped. However, Meuthen denies a direct connection. Since then, Chrupalla has led the party alone. The election was considered the first major test. At a party conference in the spring, the question is whether Chrupalla should continue to lead the AfD alone in the future.

The fact that Otte gave a lecture to the Thuringian AfD parliamentary group with its chairman Björn Höcke last year also caused unrest shortly before the election. The Thuringian AfD with its state party and faction leader Höcke as a state association is classified as extremist by the state protection of the constitution and is listed as an object of observation.

The head of the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution, Thomas Haldenwang, described Höcke as a right-wing extremist in 2020. Otte gave “a lecture on the macroeconomic consequences of the Corona policy for the German economy”, admitted the parliamentary director of the Thuringian AfD parliamentary group, Torben Braga. Otte was a CDU member at the time.

For Otte’s fight to retain his CDU membership, the announcement of the appearance is considered a serious setback. Otte declared on Sunday that he would withdraw from party politics after the candidacy and would no longer seek an office or mandate. However, he wants to fight for his CDU membership. He defended his AfD candidacy as a service for the CDU. They failed to put up their own opponent to Steinmeier. So he wanted to set an example.

In the CDU, however, one sees it quite differently. Former CDU chairman Armin Laschet spoke out in favor of a quick procedure on Sunday. Otte crossed a threshold with the candidacy. “That’s really a reason for a party exclusion,” said Laschet. Otte should be removed from the CDU as soon as possible.

On Sunday after the defeat in the Federal Assembly, Otte attracted attention again when he criticized the inaugural speech of the re-elected Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier in an unusually sharp manner. “The speech of our newly elected Federal President shocked me,” said Otte. He described the criticism of Russia’s course in Ukraine as a “confrontation with Russia. I had expected something different.”

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