Wing Struggle in AfD Catches – In anger the party threatens new anger from the far right

It shouldn’t be just an appointment notice. More like a threat. In the struggle for power over the AfD’s future, Björn Höcke’s camp announced a strategic response to party leader Jörg Meuthen’s angry speech this week. On Saturday afternoon, the head of the Thuringian AfD wants to give a sign of strength in front of 150 supporters in Höxter. But things are not going well for the far right. Instead of fear, the ridicule spread early, even within the AfD. In the official invitation to the media, the party made a strange mistake: you gave Höcke an alternative name. Björn has become “Bernd” – and the same mistake Höcke has plagued the ZDF “Heute-Show” satirical program for years.

The already bad mood of the far-right AfD should continue to depress the collapse. There is said to be a lot of anger towards Höcke and his followers. The AfD has always been a party of anger. He tried over and over to collect the dissatisfaction of the Germans and convert it into votes. Refugee policy, emissions scandal, crown pandemic: wherever problems arose, the AfD was there to exploit them. But since Meuthen publicly attacked internal party opponents at the social party conference last week in Kalkar, anger has now come to the heart of the AfD. Instead of mobilizing, it paralyzes the party.

The right field has not yet reacted

The AfD is doing as bad now as it has been for a long time. Polls collapse for the first time in a long time. And not a year before the next general election, a new dispute on the ground erupts in the AfD. There is still suspicious calm after the party congress, says an AfD leader. The far-right camp has not yet reacted. But no one expects it to stay that way.

Especially since Meuthen is breaking the hope of his opponents that he will be able to go back after the party congress. The opposite is true. Meuthen defends the advance against the Süddeutsche Zeitung and adds: “The intense discussion on party discipline was necessary and correct,” Meuthen explains. «Kalkar was a very successful party congress. With the acceptance of the guiding motion on social policy, we have completed our party program with an overwhelming majority and completed excellent post-election elections for the federal executive council and federal arbitral tribunal. ”The fronts are hardening.

An explosive mixture in the struggle for power

Meuthen’s satisfaction has a reason. Because the elections for council offices and the filling of the important federal arbitral tribunal have won all the candidates in his field. The party leader has expanded his influence on the federal executive council, the party’s most important body, to a two-thirds majority. For his far-right opponents it will be increasingly difficult in the coming months to make his life difficult in the party structures. However, the elections also showed that the rift runs through the party. The results of the vote revealed two almost equally large fields and thus an explosive mixture in the struggle for power.

However, Meuthen’s opponents seem confused and their frustration can still be seen now, a few days after the party congress. You were caught off guard by his attack on the party congress in Kalkar. Even opponents on the board. Alice Weidel is the first to openly ask Meuthen for a correction of course: “I see so many members in our party with real heart and soul that they are motivated to the tip of their hair for the next election campaigns,” says Weidel of the SZ. “You have to use this potential, the measures are not useful.” The party congress made it clear that “we urgently need to establish internal party cohesion so shortly before the decisive state elections and federal elections,” the AfD wanted to be successful.

Björn Höcke is considered massively weakened

At the party congress itself, the resistance had largely failed. Only the second row of his internal party opponents spoke out, while prominent state presidents such as North Rhine-Westphalia AfD boss Rüdiger Lucassen supported him. Bundestag parliamentary group leader Alice Weidel remained silent, her co-chair Alexander Gauland had to leave the party congress for health reasons. And Höcke has also remained silent so far. Even friends in the party who appreciate him describe him as a procrastinator who only goes into political battles that he can certainly win. He couldn’t rely on that in Kalkar. Höcke is already considered enormously weakened since his right-wing extremist comrade Andreas Kalbitz was expelled from the party. He had made arrangements and organized majorities for the right wing in the background.

Party leader Meuthen set himself the goal of marginalizing Höcke, with whom he once loved working together. These days he is happy to remind you that Höcke is just the president of a small regional association and that he is overrated. Höcke should have shown himself and lead by example, so it is said all the more by Meuthen’s opponents, the resistance was too weak.

When will the showdown take place?

Now the camp wants to reunite, a counter-strategy is being considered. Meuthen’s speech will have an impact, it is said. Perhaps the great counterattack still needs time. At the next AfD congress in spring at the latest, there may be a showdown.

But the next problems for Höcke are much closer. On Friday, the justice commission of the Thuringian state parliament lifted Höcke’s immunity. At this point, the prosecutor’s investigation of you can begin. It concerns the accusation of sedition and slander.

Posted today at 9:49 am