Meuthen withdrawal: to the right? | tagesschau.de

The AfD chairman Meuthen withdraws. The power struggle against his intimate enemy Höcke seems to have been lost. The AfD should now move even further to the right.

Jörg Meuthen clears the field without a fight. In his internal circular to the party members, the long-time AfD boss only hints at why he will not run again in December. He writes of “some hardships and disappointments”, but the real reason is likely to be that not a few loyalists in the party had recently been lost to Meuthen. Meuthen has thus anticipated the threat of defeat at the next party congress.

Kilian pepper
ARD capital studio

In the past few weeks, there had already been signs that his opponent, AfD right-wing winger and the most prominent head of the formally dissolved “wing”, Björn Höcke, was increasingly gaining influence: At the party conference in Dresden, the AfD state chief of Thuringia succeeded against the resistance of the Meuthen camp to include radical positions in the election manifesto. The “Dexit”, Germany’s exit from the EU, was also found there. That must have been a hard blow for MEP Meuthen. Meuthen had expressly spoken out against this demand.

Loss of voice in the west

The fact that the AfD suffered significant loss of votes in the federal elections in the west, but won numerous direct mandates in Saxony and Thuringia, acted like a boost for the Eastern associations dominated by the ex “wing”. Those who want to get more votes for the AfD just have to do it like them – they believe in these state associations.

This power struggle broke out openly between the two party camps and their “front people”, Meuthen and Höcke, in the dispute over the expulsion of the Höcke loyalists and “wing” puller Andreas Kalbitz. In May 2020, Höcke even accused Meuthen of “betraying the party” in a Facebook video. Meuthen struck back at the party congress in Kalkar at the end of 2020 when, in his opening speech, he spoke of AfD members who are “increasingly uninhibited” and who “love to squabble and roll around”. Meuthen didn’t have to explicitly name the “wing” people. They also felt addressed in this way. There have never been any serious attempts to bridge the party rifts that have come to light again here.

Even if Meuthen does not start to retreat completely, but announces in his circular that he will continue to “use his voice audibly”, his decision should continue to inspire his opponents. Because in the Meuthen camp, which is considered to be moderate, it is not clear who could succeed him: The Hessian digital politician Joana Cotar is mentioned again and again.

Chrupalla – the new strong man

The North Rhine-Westphalian AfD state chief and defense politician, Rüdiger Lucassen, had in the ARD interview already thrown his hat in the ring. The name Peter Boehringer comes up occasionally. But so far, at least, they hardly have the support that the leading candidate and parliamentary group chairman duo Alice Weidel and Tino Chrupalla enjoy.

It is not unlikely that the two will now also reach for the party chairmanship. At least Chrupalla is the new strong man in the party. Weidel, on the other hand, also has many enemies, as recently became clear in the vote on the parliamentary group chairmanship in the Bundestag. One hope of the Meuthen camp: that this solution can be prevented by referring to the “accumulation of offices”. Because how should the two be able to concentrate on their tasks at the parliamentary group and party leadership at the same time?

Political expert Michael Lühmann from the University of Göttingen does not believe that Björn Höcke personally takes the risk of winning a victory, but a poor result: “He remains the man in the background,” said Lühmann in an interview with the ARD–Capital studio. From his point of view, it is also clear that Meuthen has lost the power struggle – just like Bernd Lucke and Frauke Petry, who had resigned before him – against the Höcke camp. Basically nobody doubts that this will dissuade the party from the Meuthen course.