Wednesday 11th August 2021
AfD starts election campaign
Weidel wants more pride in Germany
While other parties are fighting for the “middle”, the AfD claims the authority to interpret “normality”. At the start of the election campaign, party leader Alice Weidel explains what she means by that: pride in the economic miracle, for example. On the other hand, she prefers not to mention the “deeds of long-dead generations”.
With strong criticism of the federal government’s asylum, corona and climate policy, the AfD started its federal election campaign on Tuesday evening in Schwerin. The opening of the borders in 2015 divided society, the energy transition is causing prices to rise and the fight against the corona pandemic goes hand in hand with radical encroachments on fundamental rights, said AfD chairman Tino Chrupalla. “Ms. Merkel, your corona policy gradually leads you to get used to the lack of freedom,” said Chrupalla in front of around 350 listeners in the Old Garden at the castle in Schwerin.
Together with parliamentary group leader Alice Weidel, he leads the AfD into the federal election campaign. Co-top candidate Weidel spoke out in favor of more pride in Germany and its achievements. She cited the economic miracle and reunification as examples. In the future, Germany can only be successful if it reflects on its strengths and if people are proud of them. The AfD stands for a Germany that wants to move forward. “A Germany in which we do not accuse each other of the deeds of long-dead generations in order to make political profit from them, but fill trenches,” said Weidel.
Chrupalla spoke of a fateful election on September 26th. In four years of opposition in the Bundestag, the AfD has become stronger and more professional, even if it has lost some of its comrades-in-arms. “We’re looking ahead,” he said. Chrupalla only briefly responded to the ongoing dispute over the direction of the party: “We are strong when we are in agreement, when we stick together and support one another, instead of messing around with the media to look like a clean man,” said Chrupalla.
The AfD pulls with the slogan “Germany. But normal.” in the election campaign and, according to its own statements, wants to focus on the issues of freedom and internal security, among other things. Weidel and Chrupalla called on their supporters to campaign. The aim is to move into the Schwerin state parliament and the Bundestag stronger than before. In the latest voter surveys, the AfD came to ten to eleven percent nationwide. In Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, the party was 16 percent in mid-July.
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