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In reality, the AfD wanted to demonstrate in its party congress that it can score points in social policy with content. But it turned out different. Party leader Meuthen delivered a harsh speech against his internal party opponents.
By Kai Küstner, ARD capital studio, z. Currently Kalkar
The honorary president of the AfD, Alexander Gauland, expressed all his frustration in this sentence: “We have a pension party convention, not a party congress that hits the AfD,” Gauland complained in the ARD interview. And so he expressed what has been bothering at least parts of the party since party leader Jörg Meuthen entered the speaker’s platform in Kalkar at noon.
The AfD finally wanted to show that it not only cared about itself, but also about content. With the pension, for example. The party engaged in an hour-long debate on social policy. Voted on dozens of amendments. Rank with the question of whether one should rely on private provision in a radical market way or rather on the solidary state.
Attack on the “lateral thinking” movement
By making a compromise, the AfD is now closing a gap in the party’s program that has been open for years. But the gaps in other areas are even more visible. In any case, the debate barely managed to electrify. Something else had long been discussed more passionately and emotionally behind the scenes: party leader Meuthen’s frontal attack on party rights. Just what Gauland called the “attack on AfD”.
Meuthen accuses parts of the AfD of being too close to the “lateral thinking” movement. You must be careful not to use incorrect terms: to speak of the “Enabling Act” in relation to the Infection Protection Act is as incorrect as the term “Crown dictatorship”. “We do not live in a dictatorship, otherwise we could hardly hold this party congress,” Meuthen said.
The trenches come to light
These judgments are addressed to the eastern associations that, in resistance to the protection measures of the crown, perceive a reserve of voters. And there are sentences that point to the honorary president Gauland. Who had already spoken of a “dictatorship of the Crown in revocation” with a view to the federal government. Anger on social media is already breaking through: in relevant party rights forums, the former “wing”, so-called “Meuthen must go” are already swelling again.
Even after Andreas Kalbitz, the closest confidante of AfD right-wing Björn Höcke, was expelled, Meuthen had to listen to vicious insults. His opponents claimed that he wanted to split the party. This has now happened against what many in the AfD had warned: the deep cracks, the ravines that run through this party have come to light in Kalkar. Actually, it applies to right-wing populists to enter the 2021 election year with determination and determination.
Internal party power struggle
But from the party leader Meuthen’s point of view, it makes perfect sense not to artificially whitewash these trenches and pretend they don’t exist – this is also directed at Gauland, who always emphasizes that party unity has the highest priority. But Meuthen, who in the past also made pacts with which he is now fighting, is seriously concerned about the image of the AfD in light of the “rumkrakeelers,” as he calls them.
And he wants to cement his position as leader of the party, he wants to draw to his side those who have been wavering in the internal struggle for power. The fact that Meuthen also had the protection of the Constitution at the back of his mind in his speech may also have played a role: The AfD as a whole must fear that constitutional officials will one day abide by it.
“Citizenship Money” did not get to the vote
With his frontal attack, Meuthen takes a high risk: he runs the risk that the struggle for power that has been carefully kept under cover will erupt again. As a first sign of resistance, the fact that the request for “citizenship money”, for which Meuthen had campaigned, was not even put to a vote, is seen as a first sign of resistance.
Meuthen runs the risk that even after this party congress there will be more discussion about the inner trenches of the AfD than about his ideas on retirement. But it seems to him that it is worth it.
