Close the borders completely, end aid to refugees, tighten the right to asylum, general lower taxes, exit from the euro, abandon the Paris Agreement, maintain coal as an energy source and recover nuclear energy. These are some highlights of the electoral program approved by the Alternative for Germany (AfD) at its congress held this weekend in Riesa, a town located in Saxony, a state in the east of the country and one of the strongholds of the German far-right.
The congress also served to unanimously confirm Alice Weidel as the AfD candidate for the chancellorship. The nomination has a symbolic character, because none of the parties with parliamentary representation, or that could be represented in the next Bundestag after the elections on February 23, are willing to agree to anything with the AfD. The ultras are currently in second position with around 20% of intention in voting intention surveys, very far from being able to govern alone, so they would need to coalition with another force to enter the next German government.
But the close confirmation of Weidel as a candidate – unlike previous elections, in which she paired with Tino Chrupalla, co-president of the party – shows that she has no competition within the AfD. But this leadership has a price: having to pay public obedience to the most radical wing of the party, close to neo-Nazi positions.
An analysis of Weidel’s speech after she was officially designated as a candidate confirms what has been the reality of the AfD for years: with 16 national flags behind her—one for each of the country’s federal states—Weidel deployed a dialectic so radical that Even Björn Höcke, party leader in the East German state of Thuringia and shadow power of the AfD, could sign it. Höcke is, in fact, the best and greatest representative of ethnic-nationalist tendencies within the AfD. Without the support of that faction, it is difficult for anyone to remain at the head of the most successful German far-right party since the end of the Second World War.
““Reemigration”
Weidel’s speech was full of nods to the Höcke faction. He openly opted to apply the “reemigration” plan [“reemigration”, en alemán]: that is, the forced deportation abroad of millions of migrants and refugees. The concept “re-emigration” comes from the German New Right, which defends a concept of citizenship based on ethnic criteria. The Austrian activist Martin Sellner, a leading figure of those New Rights at the head of the Identitarian Movement, is one of the voices that openly defends the “re-emigration” plan, applied not only to migrants but also to citizens with a German passport but with foreign roots.
Another of the prominent figures of these New Rights is the writer and founder of the Antaios publishing house, Götz Kubitschek, a leading thinker of the German extreme right bordering on neo-Nazism. Kubitschek is not officially a member of the AfD, but was present at the Riesa congress as one of Björn Höcke’s trusted people.
The word “reemigration” was not included in the first draft of the electoral program approved this weekend by the AfD, but the pressure from the most radical faction ended up prevailing, as happened in the congress prior to the European elections last year. This again proves that Höcke is in control of the party despite not officially being in the party presidency.
Weidel’s speech left a couple more nods to the most radical wing of his party: firstly, Björn Höcke was the only leader of the ultra formation who had an explicit mention, with first and last name, in the intervention of the candidate of AfD to chancellor. Weidel recalled that he won last autumn’s elections in Thuringia and gave it as an example of the path to success for the party. Secondly, he promised to put an end to “all the windmills” that currently generate electricity in Germany – one of the AfD’s old workhorses in its fight against renewable energy – shouting “mills of shame”.
In 2017, Höcke used the same expression — “shame” — to describe the Holocaust memorial erected in the heart of Berlin to remember the victims of National Socialism. “We, the Germans, are the only people in the world who have planted a monument of shame in the heart of their capital,” Höcke said then in a calculated strategic provocation.
“Father, mother, children”
Another of the key points of the electoral program for the current campaign is the defense of the traditional family: “The family is the core of our society,” defends AfD. This can be interpreted as another indirect blow to his candidate for chancellor. Alice Weidel is homosexual, she is in a relationship with a woman originally from Sri Lanka with whom she raises two minors in Switzerland. Weidel’s personal life therefore clashes head-on with the concept of traditional life defended by his party.
It could be said that Weidel and AfD benefit each other: the candidate makes a personal career by accepting the contradictions that confront her with her formation, while the far-right party tolerates her knowing that her profile serves to distance herself from an image of radicalism and open the way. door of electoral groups a priori unlikely to vote for the AfD.
In addition to the approval of the electoral program and the confirmation of Weidel’s candidacy, the AfD congress in Riesa leaves a third headline: the AfD’s willingness to dissolve its youth, until now called Junge Alternative (Young Alternative, JA). The Office for the Defense of the Constitution—internal intelligence services—considers them “right-wing extremists” and a threat to the country’s constitutional order. The party leadership also considers them too radical and wants to create a youth organization that is less autonomous and more linked to the party. Members of the JA have openly defended theses of ethnic nationalism on social networks such as those represented by Martin Sellner’s Identitarian Movement.
#Alice #Weidel #shows #obedience #radical #wing #Alternative #Germany
