Tino Chrupalla and Alice Weidel head the new national board of the Alternative for Germany (AfD). Both were elected federal spokespersons at the AfD federal party conference in Riesa, Saxony, thereby expanding their cooperation at the head of the AfD parliamentary group.
Chrupalla achieved the significantly weaker result of the two with 53.45 percent of the votes. He prevailed comparatively narrowly against his opponent Norbert Kleinwaechter, who was voted for by 36.3 percent of the delegates. Ten percent of those present rejected both applicants.
Weidel, who had previously been the party’s co-spokeswoman, received 67.3 percent of the vote. She thus clearly prevailed over the Berlin MEP Nicolaus Fest, who only got 20.75 percent of the votes after a weak speech.
Chrupalla, proposed by Weidel, thanked the delegates for their support. “Today the departure of the AfD begins,” said Chrupalla in a first press statement from the newly elected board of directors. He announced that the time of the internal dispute was now over and that the new board would work together “as one”.
“The Meuthen era ended today,” Chrupalla continued. After the ex-party leader Jörg Meuthen left the party in January, the frustration and disappointment of the delegates – also because of the lost state elections – stuck with Chrupalla.
Already in his application speech, he dedicated a large part of his contribution to the party’s “fighting between the wings”, which was recently fought in public. Instead of damaging it through discord, the party’s profile must be sharpened, explained Chrupalla, adding: “We are the first and last opposition. We are the party that gives citizens a voice on the streets.”
In the direction of his opponents within the party, some of whom were members of the federal executive board that was relieved on Friday, Chrupalla said: “This must come to an end.” , because the base is to be silenced.”
Chrupalla and Weidel already lead the AfD parliamentary group together. This model of success will be “mirrored on the party,” said Weidel. She criticized the work of the last federal board, to which she had belonged as a deputy: “You couldn’t do anything worse”.
Chrupalla’s opponent, Kleinwächter, deputy chairman of the AfD parliamentary group, had previously given a loudly applauded speech. In it he called on the party to be more united. “We no longer have time for the fermenting bunch, we need professionalization, unity, discipline with full grass-roots democracy,” said Kleinwächter.
He demanded that the party must, firstly, concentrate on its core issues and, secondly, communicate them better. “The AfD is the bourgeois party in Germany, only the people don’t know it.” Only if one’s own content – also via “own” media – is made available to the general public does it lead to “unity, discipline, clarity” in the Political party.
After the election of the two federal spokespersons, the three deputy party leaders were voted on. In the first ballot, Höcke confidante Stephan Brandner clearly prevailed against Frank-Christian Hansel and thus continued the triumph of the radical party camp in the federal executive committee.
The Bavarian member of the Bundestag Peter Boehringer and the Hessian member of the Bundestag Marianna Harder-Kühnel were also elected deputies. The party’s new treasurer is Carsten Hütter, his deputy is Harald Weyel.
