AfD local politicians in Thuringia are calling for state and parliamentary group leader Björn Höcke to be expelled from the party. The reason is his support for an alternative list for the election and the plan to throw AfD candidates out of the party, reports Picture.
“We are calling for his resignation and are preparing something,” said the AfD mayoral candidate for Rudolstadt, Jörg Gasda, to the paper. Until now, everyone Höcke didn’t want had to leave at some point. This mainly gathers yes-sayers around him. “These are people who stand at the gas station in the morning with beer.” District council candidate Josef Kluy said: “Höcke’s behavior fits a narcissist, but has nothing to do with democratic customs. We don’t have to be thrown out of the party – if so, then he does.”
Höcke did not initially comment on the preliminary report. Höcke is considered the most prominent representative of the party’s right-wing wing. Most recently he was sentenced to a fine of 13,000 euros for using an SA slogan. The process will soon be before the Federal Court of Justice. Höcke’s defense attorneys have filed an appeal against the Halle Regional Court’s ruling on Tuesday.
Local elections as a test of AfD strength
There are local elections in Thuringia on May 26th. “The local elections in Thuringia will be a decisive turning point for the ability to work at the local level,” says Thuringia’s CDU general secretary and district administrator of the Saale-Orla district, Christian Herrgott, to the Reuters news agency.
The reason: It’s not just about whether other AfD politicians become mayors or district administrators and whether the right-wing populist party takes on decision-making roles there. The composition of the district councils and city councils influences the daily work in the communities – and can cause problems in the large political wheels, for example when it comes to the approval of wind turbines or asylum seekers’ homes.
How great the concern is is shown by considerations within the Thuringian state government to withdraw responsibility for approving wind turbines from mayors and district administrators after the local elections. The green-led environment ministry in Erfurt downplays corresponding media reports. But there is certainly concern that AfD-led local authorities could deliberately delay the energy transition by unnecessarily delaying or even completely refusing to process building applications.
The AfD Thuringia has more than doubled the number of its candidates compared to the 2019 election. Thuringia is considered a test case for the local elections in eight federal states on June 9th – in addition to the European elections on that day. Here too, the focus is on the AfD’s performance.