Dhe AfD chairman Jorg Meuthen turns his back on the party. Meuthen confirmed on Friday on request that he would resign and leave the AfD. WDR, NDR and the ARD capital studio had previously reported.
Meuthen spoke told the broadcasters that he was defeated in the power struggle over the direction of the AfD, specifically it is about the formally dissolved right-wing extremist so-called wing. Meuthen said: “The heart of the party beats very far to the right today and it actually beats constantly.” Parts of the party were “not on the ground of the free democratic basic order,” he said. “I clearly see totalitarian echoes there.” The AfD has developed something akin to a sect, especially when it comes to corona policy. At best, he sees a future for the AfD as an East German regional party.
Alexander Gauland, the AfD honorary chairman and former parliamentary group leader in the Bundestag, described Meuthen’s step as wrong. “I am personally deeply disappointed in Mr. Meuthen,” said Gauland of the FAZ. In a democratic party, a politician often loses power struggles and is also repeatedly defeated on factual issues. “But then you don’t leave the party,” said Gauland. It was a “very regrettable and wrong decision” by Meuthen.
Gauland recalled Friedrich Merz, who also lost a power struggle in the CDU and even needed three attempts to become party chairman. Meuthen had recently opposed the nomination of the CDU politician Max Otte, known for his extreme right-wing positions, as the AfD candidate for the office of Federal President. He had not been able to assert himself in the party executive of the AfD.
Meuthen had already announced in autumn that he would no longer run for party chairmanship in the AfD. This had already been taken as an admission of defeat in the power struggle against the extreme right wing of the party and against its opponents on the party executive.
Meuthen’s relationship with his co-chairman Tino Chrupalla and party deputy Alice Weidel is considered to be in tatters. In the ARD interview, Meuthen named several of his opponents by name: “Not to forget Chrupalla, Weidel, Gauland, Höcke, Brandner – they will be really happy that Meuthen is finally gone,” he said – and added: “Have she’s been working on it for a long time.”
One of those criticized, Björn Höcke, responded to Meuthen’s announcement on Twitter. “I respect Jörg Meuthen’s decision and wish him the personal and professional satisfaction that he could not find in the party,” he wrote.
According to the report, Meuthen wants to keep his mandate as a member of the European Parliament in the right-wing populist group “Identity and Democracy”. Most recently, Meuthen had come under more pressure, and criminal investigations against him were getting closer. The responsible committee in the EU Parliament voted with a large majority on Thursday to lift Meuthen’s parliamentary immunity. The background is investigations into the AfD donation affair. Before Meuthen actually loses its immunity, the plenary session of parliament still has to approve the move in February. As a rule, it follows the recommendations of the committee.
Meuthen is not the first AfD boss to leave the party in a dispute. The former chairmen Bernd Lucke and Frauke Petry have also turned away from the AfD. Meuthen joined the AfD in 2013 and became federal spokesman in the summer of 2015 after Lucke’s departure. First he led the AfD alongside Petry, then with Alexander Gauland and finally with Tino Chrupalla.