The struggle of the wing in the AfD reaches a critical point: in the party of anger threatens a new anger of the extreme right

It shouldn’t just be an appointment notice. More like a threat. In the power struggle for the future of the AfD, the camp of Björn Höcke this week announced a strategic response to the angry speech of party leader Jörg Meuthen. On Saturday afternoon, the head of the Thuringia AfD wants to give a signal of strength in front of 150 supporters in Höxter. But things are not going well for the extreme right. Instead of fear, the ridicule spread beforehand, even within the AfD. In the official invitation to the media, the party made a strange slip: You gave Höcke an alternative name. Björn became “Bernd”, and the mistake with which the satirical ZDF “Today Show” has plagued Höcke for years.

The already grumpy far-right AfD should continue to depress the collapse. It is said that there is much anger against Höcke and his followers. The AfD has always been a party of anger. He has tried time and again to win back the discontent of the Germans and turn it into votes. Refugee politics, broadcast scandal, corona pandemic – wherever problems arose, the AfD was there to instrumentalize them. But since Meuthen publicly attacked internal party opponents at the social party congress in Kalkar last week, anger has now reached the middle of the AfD. Instead of mobilizing, it paralyzes the party.

The right side has not yet fought back

The AfD is doing so badly now that it has been for a long time. The polls collapse for the first time in a long time. And not a year before the next general election, a new field dispute breaks out in the AfD. There is still a suspicious calm after the party congress, says an AfD leader. The far-right camp has yet to respond. But nobody expects it to stay that way.

Especially since Meuthen is crushing the hopes of his opponents to be able to row after the party congress. The opposite is true. Meuthen defends the advance against the Süddeutsche Zeitung and even adds: “The intense discussion about disciplining the party was necessary and correct,” Meuthen clarifies. Kalkar was a very successful party congress. With the acceptance of the main motion on social policy, we completed our party program with an overwhelming majority and ran excellent post-elections for the federal executive board and federal arbitral tribunal. ”The fronts are hardening.

An explosive mix in the struggle for power

Meuthen’s satisfaction has a reason. Because the elections for seats on the board and the occupation of the important federal arbitration court won candidates from their field. The party leader expanded his influence on the federal executive board, the party’s most important body, to a two-thirds majority. It will be increasingly difficult for his opponents in the field of the far right in the coming months to make life difficult for him in the party structures. However, the elections also showed that the gap runs through the party. The results of the vote revealed two fields of almost the same size and thus an explosive mix in the struggle for power.

However, Meuthen’s opponents seem confused and his frustration can still be seen now, days after the party congress. His attack at the party congress in Kalkar took him by surprise. Also the opponents on the board. Alice Weidel is the first to openly demand a correction of course from Meuthen: “I see so many members of our party with real hearts and souls who are motivated to the tip of their hair for the upcoming election campaigns,” says Weidel of the SZ. “You have to use this potential, the measures are not useful.” The party congress made it clear that “we urgently need to establish internal party cohesion so shortly before the decisive state elections and federal elections” the AfD wanted to succeed.

Björn Höcke is considered to be greatly weakened

In the party congress itself, the resistance had largely failed. Only the second rank of his internal party opponents spoke, while top state presidents such as the head of the North Rhine-Westphalia AfD, Rüdiger Lucassen, supported him. The leader of the parliamentary group in the Bundestag Alice Weidel was silent, her co-chair, Alexander Gauland, had to leave the party congress for health reasons. And Höcke has also remained silent until now. Even valued party friends describe him as a procrastinator who only participates in political battles that he can certainly win. He couldn’t trust that in Kalkar. Höcke already considers himself enormously weakened since his far-right partner Andreas Kalbitz was expelled from the party. He had arranged and organized majorities for the right at the bottom.

Party leader Meuthen has set himself the goal of marginalizing Höcke, with whom he once enjoyed working together. These days he is happy to remind you that Höcke is only the president of a small regional association and that he is overrated. Höcke should have shown up and set an example, which is why Meuthen’s opponents say the resistance was too weak.

When will the confrontation occur?

Now that the camp wants to reunite, a counter strategy is being considered. Meuthen’s speech will have an impact, it is said. Perhaps the great counterattack will still need some time. No later than the next AfD party convention in the spring, there could be a showdown.

But the next problems for Höcke are much closer. On Friday, the justice committee of the Thuringian state parliament lifted Höcke’s immunity. Then the prosecutor’s investigation against you can begin. It is about the accusation of sedition and slander.

Posted today at 9:49 am