Berlin – The foreseeable end of a political career became known on Friday afternoon: AfD boss Jörg Meuthen is leaving this party, which has so far vacillated between a right-wing conservative and right-wing extremist orientation. The 60-year-old is thus following the path of those well-known people who led the party before him: Bernd Lucke, the party founder, who was overthrown by Frauke Petry because she wanted to lead the party further to the right, which in turn was overthrown by Meuthen, who led the party further to the right.
Now he’s gone too and says his party’s heart beats “very far to the right”. That’s an understatement. Because with this retreat, Meuthen’s somewhat more moderate camp lost the internal party struggle against the radical forces that had been raging for many months.
The Höcke camp won
Meuthen has led the party since 2015, making it its most persistent boss to date. He saw himself as an inner-party bulwark of the right-wing conservative-bourgeois current against radical right-wing or extremist forces around Björn Höcke and Andreas Kalbitz, who once led the “wing”. This inner-party group was officially classified as right-wing extremist and only formally dissolved itself quickly to prevent the entire party from being banned.
The former “wing” represented at least 40 percent of the members, now the influence is likely to increase significantly. The Meuthen camp saw the future of the party in a potential alliance with right-wing forces in the CDU, such as with people like the former head of the Office for the Protection of the Constitution, Hans-Georg Maassen. This camp also hoped for a shift to the right under Friedrich Merz as CDU leader. Höcke and his radical camp, on the other hand, rely on fundamental opposition.
Now Tino Chrupalla remains as the second party leader who has the support of the ex-“wing”. It doesn’t matter whether he remains party leader or whether Höcke seizes power himself for the first time – it is now clear to voters that the party has opted for the radical path.
However, it is unclear whether the right-wing conservative forces, which tend to dominate in the West, are now splitting off. Then the radical forces, which dominate above all in the east, would make the AfD a loud and radical splinter party there – and thus risk being banned.