The AfD is at the poll high. In the opinion of its former federal chairman Jörg Meuthen, the party does not owe this to its own content. The reason is rather the weakness of the other parties, as Meuthen explains in the “Bild am Sonntag”.

“In terms of content and personnel, the party is completely blank, the good people are all gone. The party only benefits from the frightening weakness of the other parties,” said Meuthen about his former political home. From mid-2015 to the beginning of last year, he was one of two federal spokespersons. That’s what the right-wing conservative party, which the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution classifies as a suspected case, calls its chairmen.

“Of course, the AfD will nominate a candidate for Chancellor and of course that will be Alice Weidel. But thank God she will never come into government responsibility,” said Meuthen.

According to a recent survey by the opinion research institute Insa on behalf of “BamS”, the AfD is currently on a par with the SPD with 20 percent approval and behind the Union (26 percent). The FDP comes to 7 percent in the survey and the left remains at 4 percent.

This Sunday evening, for the first time in Germany, an AfD politician could become a district administrator. In the Thuringian district of Sonneberg, a runoff will decide whether the AfD candidate Robert Stuhlmann or the incumbent CDU district administrator Jürgen Köpper will have the say in the next six years.

Meuthen, who taught for many years as an economics professor but is now on leave from this position, said that with his departure the moderate camp had disintegrated and the radicals had taken control of the AfD. “It only consists of extremists, opportunists and careerists who, in their greed for mandates, come to terms with these people to the point of complete pandering,” says the 61-year-old.

Take a look at the photo series from our archive: The 70th Federal Press Ball at the end of April was all about freedom of the press. Numerous well-known politicians and celebrities celebrated in Berlin – Chancellor Olaf Scholz was not there.