In response to Meuthen’s withdrawal
Erika Steinbach joins the AfD
01/28/2022 10:03 p.m
Former CDU MP Erika Steinbach has been supporting the AfD for years without being a party member herself. The departure of Jörg Meuthen is now motivating them to change this. In her statement, she does not shy away from sharp criticism of the ex-party leader.
Former CDU member of the Bundestag Erika Steinbach has applied to join the AfD. The 78-year-old announces this on Twitter. Steinbach cited the departure of ex-party leader Jörg Meuthen as the reason. “The deliberately destructive resignation of Jörg Meuthen” was a slap in the face for many party members, she wrote in a statement.
Actually, Steinbach would not have planned to join a party again. “The indisputable handling of politics and the media with the AfD, a still young party”, as well as the “unfair exit of Jörg Meuthen” made her rethink. For Steinbach, the AfD represents the “only bourgeois alternative” and “a glimmer of hope”. “As the last few months have shown, extremist and anti-constitutional efforts have no place in the AfD,” said the politician.
The former co-party leader Meuthen had previously announced his departure from the AfD. He justified this with a defeat in the power struggle with the formally dissolved right-wing extremist wing. In his opinion, the AfD was “not based on the free-democratic basic order”. Meuthen also spoke of “totalitarian echoes”.
Steinbach sat in the German Bundestag from 1990 to 2017. Also in 2017 she left the CDU. She justified this with differences in content about Angela Merkel’s refugee policy. Since then, Steinbach has supported the AfD, but so far without being a party member. Since 2018 she has acted as chairwoman of the AfD-affiliated Desiderius Erasmus Foundation.