federal party convention
Chrupalla remains AfD boss – Weidel becomes AfD co-boss
Tino Chrupalla remains party leader of the AfD. Photo: Sebastian Kahnert/dpa
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The AfD has decided: Tino Chrupalla remains at the top of the party. His opponent from the more moderate camp achieved respectable success.
Tino Chrupalla remains party leader of the AfD. At the federal party conference in Riesa, Saxony, the 47-year-old received 287 of 538 votes (53.4 percent) on Saturday.
His opponent Norbert Kleinwächter got 195 votes (36.3 percent). 55 delegates voted against both candidates. There was one abstention.
Alice Weidel is promoted to co-chair of the AfD. At the federal party conference in Riesa, Saxony, the delegates elected her second, equal federal spokeswoman (67.3 percent) alongside Tino Chrupalla. Weidel already leads the parliamentary group with Chrupalla and was previously deputy party leader.
The delegates had changed the statutes of the AfD on Friday, so that theoretically an individual leadership is also possible in the future. The Thuringian head of state and party right winger Björn Höcke had campaigned for this. However, the party congress voted on Saturday to leave it at a dual leadership this time.
Weidel as co-chair?
It was expected that Alice Weidel, with whom Chrupalla also jointly leads the parliamentary group, would be elected to the post of co-chair.
At the delegates’ meeting, which lasts until Sunday, the entire federal executive board, which last consisted of 13 members, will be reassigned. This will also decide on the future course of the AfD – depending on how many representatives of the respective party current can secure a post in the body.
Chrupalla has been at the helm since November 2019. In his first election at the party congress in Braunschweig at the time, he got 54.5 percent of the votes. The master craftsman from Saxony led the AfD alone after the departure of ex-co-boss Jörg Meuthen. Meuthen had certified the AfD an increasingly radical course. The Office for the Protection of the Constitution classified the party as a suspected right-wing extremist.
Loss of votes in state elections
Critics within the party, who consider themselves to be in the moderate camp, openly attacked the party leader after the recent loss of votes in several state elections and accused him, among other things, of not being able to score points in the West. You have to “get away from the angry citizens’ party”. They also criticize Chrupalla’s course as being too pro-Russian and associate it with leaving the party.
Chrupalla’s opponent, Kleinwächter, said in his application speech that “we urgently need to get out of the low we’re in”. He advocated professionalism, unity, discipline and a new style of external communication and insisted on a “liberal-conservative” course for the AfD. “We actually represent the majority of the population in our country. She just doesn’t know and we have to let her know.” As a representative of the moderate current, he achieved respectable success at the party congress.
Chrupalla campaigned for differentiation from the Union and the FDP. “We want to make the CDU and FDP superfluous,” he said. CDU party leader Friedrich Merz is a “green wolf in black sheep’s clothing.” The AfD does not participate in “vaccination, war and open borders”. According to his own statements, the 47-year-old wants to lead the AfD on a “free and social” course in the next two years.