AfD parliamentary group leader Alice Weidel in the Bundestag
Image: dpa
In the coming year, the state parliaments in Brandenburg, Saxony and Thuringia will be re-elected. The AfD then sees its time to help govern in the East.
ZTen years after its founding, the AfD says it wants to focus its strategy more on participation in the government for the first time. “We are already preparing for the super elections in East Germany in 2024,” said co-boss Alice Weidel of the German Press Agency in Berlin. “Of course, that is strategically relevant because we are announcing the first government responsibility in an East German federal state.” In the coming year, new state parliaments will be elected in Saxony, Brandenburg and Thuringia.
When asked whether this was realistic, given the negative attitude of the CDU as a possible coalition partner, she said: “I think it’s absolutely realistic.” In Saxony, the AfD and CDU together represented two-thirds of the electorate. “You can’t continue to refuse that forever.” Weidel named “personnel development programs and internal training programs for good personnel” as a priority, “in order to also be able to assume government responsibility. We have to build that up in a structured way like in a group,” she said.
However, when asked, a CDU spokesman made it clear: “We have a clear party conference decision. Any cooperation with the AfD is excluded. Our firewall to the right must be in place.” The AfD will soon be ten years old. It was founded on February 6, 2013 in Oberursel, Hesse.
