A fortnight ago, the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party announced that it would launch its European campaign on Saturday April 27 in Donaueschingen (Baden-Württemberg), a peaceful town in the Black Forest near the Swiss border. On the visuals produced ahead of the event appeared three names: those of the two co-presidents of the party, Tino Chrupalla and Alice Weidel, and that of MEP Maximilian Krah, head of the AfD list for the European elections on June 9 .
On Saturday, the first two were present in Donaueschingen. But not the third. Four days after one of his parliamentary assistants was arrested for alleged espionage for China, and three days after the courts decided to open two investigations against him for suspected financing from China and Russia, Mr Krah was asked to stay away “so as not to weigh on the campaign and the image of the party”, as the AfD leadership made known. His visit canceled, it was another candidate, Marc Jongen, fifth on the party list for the European elections, who replaced him on the visuals redone at the last minute…
While outside several hundred demonstrators gathered to denounce the AfD as a party of“A (foreigners), F (ascists) and D (emagogues)” or to rename it “Alternative for dictators”, the speakers do not dwell on the subject, other than to play the victimization card. “For weeks our party has been systematically discredited and pilloried”denounced AfD co-president Alice Weidel. “We are facing a large-scale campaign which aims to sully our head of list”, echoed Emil Sänze, president of the AfD federation of Baden-Württemberg. “These days, some are trying to lock the AfD inside a Chinese coffer”was indignant Austrian MEP Harald Vilimsky, member of the far-right FPÖ party.
Racist and transphobic clips
Determined not to let themselves be weighed down by the setbacks of their head of list, the AfD officials present in Donaueschingen could have devoted their speaking time to presenting their program for Europe. In reality, they mainly indulged in their favorite sport of castigating the government of Olaf Scholz, suspecting it of“drag Germany into war” by supporting Ukraine militarily, accusing it of having “closed the last nuclear power plants out of pure ideology” at a time when energy prices were soaring, and accusing him of “lead the country to ruin” in the “deindustrializing at high speed”.
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