analysis
Maximilian Krah ensured that all nine AfD MPs were excluded from the ID parliamentary group. Some in the party believe that the federal executive board bears a great deal of responsibility. How great is the damage to the AfD?
The AfD actually has something to celebrate these days. Exactly ten years ago, it received 7.1 percent in the European elections, and the European Parliament was the first supra-regional parliament that the eurosceptic party ever entered. Now all nine AfD MPs from the right-wing ID group have been expelled.
“This is the worst birthday present anyone could have given us,” said one party member who did not want his name to appear in this article. Many in the AfD do not have a good opinion of leading candidate Maximilian Krah.
Disaster foretold
If you ask around in the party about the latest events, one sentence is repeated again and again: “It was a disaster waiting to happen.” In other words: the federal executive board had long been aware of the high risk that would be associated with Krahs’s candidacy in the European elections.
“Schampus Max,” as some AfD politicians now call the candidate in background discussions, did not have the best reputation even before the 2023 European election party conference in Magdeburg. Nevertheless, he was elected to first place on the list at the time. It is suspected that the very good poll ratings at the time may have clouded the delegates’ view; at the time the AfD was at around 20 percent.
What responsibility do Weidel and Chrupalla have?
If you look for the cause, you will hear attempts at explanation from the party that chairmen Alice Weidel and Tino Chrupalla will not like. They say that the party is run unprofessionally, that sometimes unpleasant, painful decisions have to be made, but that the chairmen duck away.
Weidel in particular is accused of not wanting to take responsibility on crucial issues. The party leadership should have signaled to Krah that they would not support him.
Pressure from different Directions
But as is so often the case with the AfD, the pressure is coming from different directions. Others, for example, believe that Maximilian Krah is being treated unfairly.
Götz Kubitschek, for example, the right-wing extremist thinker from Schnellroda, wrote in a newsletter from his publishing house Antaios on Wednesday: “The AfD is well on its way to missing the necessary counterattack or not even launching it. Let us support Krah.” Here, too, a barely concealed attack on the party leaders.
Lukewarm reaction
The reaction of the party leadership to the exclusion from the ID faction was rather lukewarm. The decision of the ID faction was noted, said Weidel and Chrupalla. And they continued: “Nevertheless, we are optimistic about election night and the days that follow.”
There is not necessarily a reason for this. “One can assume that the AfD is already on the decline,” says Klaus Peter Schöppner of the opinion research institute Mentefactum in German RadioIn the most recent poll, the AfD only received 15 percent.
Dangerous spiral effect
According to Schöppner, it is dangerous for parties when a so-called spiral effect sets in, “when one negative piece of news trumps the next,” when voters perceive a significant deterioration in the party’s performance.
The AfD has had a lot of this kind of news recently: the secret meeting in Potsdam in January, the court rulings against Björn Höcke and the ruling of the Münster Higher Administrative Court against the party, the investigations against the European election candidate Petr Bystron on suspicion of bribery and money laundering, the lifting of the immunity of the Bundestag member Hannes Gnauck, the suspicion of espionage against Krah’s staff in the European Parliament, Krah’s statements about the SS in an Italian newspaper.
Eyes shut and go for it?
The party says that it is now necessary to achieve the best possible result in the European elections, that is the duty of everyone. Given the numerous bad news, that will not be so easy to achieve. The AfD’s strategy for the next two weeks until the election? “Close your eyes and get on with it.”