Friday, May 28, 2021
After the candidate freestyle of the AfD
Gauland pokes at Meuthen
Alexander Gauland himself will probably no longer run in the upcoming federal election. Currently, however, he does not miss the opportunity to classify the latest candidate freestyle again within the party. He aims directly at the party leader.
After the clear decision of the AfD base for the duo Alice Weidel and Tino Chrupalla as the top candidate for the federal election, AfD parliamentary group leader Alexander Gauland taunts the party chairman Jörg Meuthen. “Normally, such a decision would not be a question of victory or defeat for a party leader,” Gauland told “Spiegel”. But since Meuthen supported the defeated duo Joana Cotar and Joachim Wundrak, he had to “take their defeat into account”.
In the online member survey, co-parliamentary group leader Weidel and co-party leader Chrupalla received around 71 percent of the vote, while their opponents only received around 27 percent. Cotar and Wundrak belong to the camp around Meuthen, which advocates an economically liberal and more moderate course; Chrupalla and Weidel can count on the support of the right-wing national camp of the AfD.
In view of the outcome of the vote, Gauland said whether Meuthen could remain party leader in the fall, “is currently just reading coffee grounds.” In any case, the choice of candidates showed one thing: “Particularly skillful, ironically noted, he did not do it.”
Regarding his own future as co-leader of the parliamentary group, Gauland said that a renewed candidacy in the autumn at the age of 80 is “rather unlikely” and “not a good idea”. After the federal election, Weidel and Chrupalla would have “the right to access the parliamentary group chairman”.
.