Party appoints new board
Chrupalla elected AfD federal chairman
06/18/2022, 11:41 am
At its federal party conference in Riesa, the AfD agreed to maintain the dual leadership for the time being: Tino Chrupalla remains federal spokesman. His challenger is clearly defeated. It is not yet clear who will be the co-speaker.
Tino Chrupalla stays: At its party conference in Riesa, Saxony, the AfD confirmed the previous federal spokesman in office. Norbert Kleinwächter from Brandenburg, who had challenged Chrupalla, failed with his opposing candidacy. Chrupalla received 53.5 percent of the votes, Kleinwächter came to 36.3 percent. 10.2 percent of the delegates abstained. Alice Weidel applied to be co-spokesperson alongside Chrupalla. The two lead the parliamentary group together. Your challenger is MEP Nicolaus Fest.
“We no longer have time for the fermenting bunch,” said Kleinwächter, a member of the AfD parliamentary group board, alluding to a statement by honorary chairman Alexander Gauland. “We need professionalization, we need unity, we need discipline with full grass-roots democracy.” The Brandenburger Kleinwächter received less applause than Chrupalla, but received approval in the hall.
Chrupalla accused the Kleinwächters camp of having damaged the reputation of the party and faction leadership. “I’m the federal spokesman for the base,” said Chrupalla, who has been the federal spokesman since November 2019. “If I’m attacked, it’s only because the base is to be silenced.” When asked what he wanted to do better in the future, Chrupalla remained vague. “We have to support each other,” he said, referring to the work of the district associations. Even in his statement of accounts and his application speech, the reasons for the decline in support and membership of the AfD were hardly an issue.
On Friday, the more than 500 delegates with the required two-thirds majority approved a motion to change the statutes of the Thuringian right winger Björn Höcke. This paved the way for a single leadership instead of a double leadership. “We’ll do the two-man lead again in this run,” said Höcke in justifying his application. The party should once again experience “neutral” leadership by the federal executive board, “in order to elect a one-person leader next time.” A motion to elect a one-man leadership this time clearly failed on Saturday: 78 percent of the more than 500 delegates voted for a two-man leadership.
On Friday evening, Chrupalla asked critical questions during a discussion about the activity report of the outgoing national board. Among other things, it was about the question of why numerous members left the party and why the party cut off in the previous elections with sometimes significant losses. Chrupalla named the disputes in the previous federal board as the main cause of the problems, but was optimistic that the conflicts would be history after Meuthen left the party.