{"id":416006,"date":"2025-01-13T13:37:47","date_gmt":"2025-01-13T12:37:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/2025\/01\/13\/germania-afd-candidata-alice-weidel\/"},"modified":"2025-01-13T15:44:19","modified_gmt":"2025-01-13T14:44:19","slug":"german-election-afd-nominates-alice-weidel-as-chancellor-candidate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/2025\/01\/13\/german-election-afd-nominates-alice-weidel-as-chancellor-candidate\/","title":{"rendered":"German election: AfD nominates Alice Weidel as chancellor candidate"},"content":{"rendered":"

Brussels – In the new year, the election campaign has officially begun in Germany<\/strong>, where citizens will go to the polls<\/a>\u00a0on\u00a0February 23 to renew the Bundestag<\/i> and the government<\/strong>.\u00a0The ultra-right AfD,<\/strong> for the first time in its history, has nominated a candidate for chancellor,<\/strong> party co-president Alice Weidel<\/strong>. The post-Nazi formation aims to cross the psychological threshold of 20 percent and is virtually guaranteed (barring unforeseen events) to overtake the Social Democrats<\/strong> of outgoing Chancellor Olaf Scholz.<\/strong><\/p>\n

At the 16th federal congress of Alternative f\u00fcr Deutschland<\/i> (AfD)<\/strong> held over the weekend (Jan. 11-12), the ultranationalist and Euroskeptic party unanimously chose<\/a>\u00a0Alice Weidel,\u00a0co-president with Tino Chrupalla since June 2022,\u00a0as the candidate for chancellor.<\/p>\n

“Thank you very much for your great trust<\/strong>,” she said from the stage in Riesa, Saxony (one of the party’s strongholds in former East Germany<\/strong>, where it\u00a0achieved overwhelming success<\/a> in September’s elections). “I’m looking forward to out joint election campaign,” she added, “for Germany, our country, and\u00a0our future!<\/strong>“<\/p>\n

\n

Thank you very much for your great trust. I am very much looking forward to our joint Alternative for Germany election campaign for our country, for our future! Thank you so much for your trust. I am excited to lead our campaign as the chancellor candidate for the Alternative… pic.twitter.com\/J3QvxRxnIa<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2014 Alice Weidel (@Alice_Weidel) January 11, 2025<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It is the first time AfD has expressed a candidate for chancellor <\/strong>since its foundation\u00a0in 2013.<\/strong> For several months, all available polls have shown the ethno-nationalist, pro-Kremlin, and anti-migrant formation coming in second in the early elections<\/strong> that the government crisis triggered<\/a>\u00a0in\u00a0November.<\/p>\n

While the top spot will unquestionably go to the conservatives of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU\/CSU)\u00a0<\/strong>led by Friedrich Merz<\/strong>, which surveys give at\u00a0around 31 percent<\/strong> of support, AfD is steadily hovering around 20 percent<\/strong>, with the most generous projections predicting as high as 22 percent. For the leadership, AfD’s goal will be to break through the psychological threshold of 20 percent<\/strong>. At the last federal elections in 2021, it had taken 10.4 percent<\/strong>, sending to the Bundestag<\/i> 83 deputies (11 fewer than in 2017).<\/p>\n

The Social Democratic Party (SPD)<\/strong>, which confirmed on Jan. 11 the outgoing chancellor Olaf Scholz<\/strong> as its candidate (a mere formality after the step aside<\/a>\u00a0by\u00a0the only potential challenger, Defense Minister Boris Pistorius<\/strong>), plays for third place against the Greens<\/strong>, current coalition partners, dueling for a result between 16 and 14 percent<\/strong>. For the Socialists, this could be the worst defeat in over 160 years<\/strong>, a decidedly unworthy defeat from the\u00a0far-from-brilliant\u00a0interlude between the reign of Angela Merkel<\/strong> (16 years in power between 2005 and 2021) and the following Christian Democratic chancellorship of Merz<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

\"Olaf<\/a>
Outgoing German chancellor and SPD candidate Olaf Scholz (photo: European Council)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The political fact worthy of note\u00a0is the growth in popularity of Germany’s far-right<\/strong> in recent years, although the positive trend is not uniform<\/strong> throughout the Federal Republic: the AfD is traditionally stronger<\/a> in the eastern L\u00e4nder<\/i><\/strong>, those that made up the DDR in the days of the Cold War, while support for its candidates is much more tepid in the wealthier, industrialized areas of the country.<\/p>\n

Moreover, in Germany,\u00a0the cordon sanitaire<\/strong> seems to be holding against those whom a majority of the population continue to oppose<\/a> as post-Nazis, and together with whom the traditional parties (including the CDU\/CSU) so far have refused to govern<\/strong>\u00a0at\u00a0both a local and national level. Therefore, beyond all the talk, there is no chance for the AfD to win the chancellorship (an impossible feat, numbers in hand)\u00a0nor to enter the\u00a0control room\u00a0as a partner in a coalition executive<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Nevertheless, Elon Musk<\/strong>, the wealthiest\u00a0man on the planet who will have a key role in the next US administration<\/strong> led by Donald Trump,\u00a0<\/strong>recently praised\u00a0<\/strong>Weidel and her background. During a live broadcast on the X platform<\/strong>, which he owns along with\u00a0Tesla and SpaceX, the South African-born tycoon explicitly said<\/a>\u00a0that “only the AfD can save Germany<\/strong>,” sparking an uproar in both Berlin and Brussels.<\/p>\n

However, despite the electoral success predicted in\u00a0polls within the AfD, not everyone seems to be rowing<\/a>\u00a0in the same direction. There are\u00a0allegedly\u00a0internal divisions within the party<\/strong>, with the most fundamentalist base<\/strong> blaming the leadership for\u00a0moderating its tone<\/strong> on various issues such as abortion, climate change, and compulsory military conscription, for example. At the Riesa congress, there was a heated debate\u00a0<\/a>over the reform (later approved by delegates) of the party’s youth organization, Junge Alternative<\/i> (JA)<\/strong>, which German authorities certified as “extremist”<\/strong> last June and which has a long history of disagreements with the leadership.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

At the party’s congress in Saxony, delegates unanimously endorsed the party’s co-president as the face for leading Berlin’s executive. The ultra-right leader’s chances of coming to power are virtually nil, but the rise of the post-Nazi formation in the country is now a political fact with which Germany must come to terms<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7876,"featured_media":416000,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"episode_type":"","audio_file":"","podmotor_file_id":"","podmotor_episode_id":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","filesize_raw":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"format":"standard","override":[{"template":"1","parallax":"1","fullscreen":"1","layout":"right-sidebar","sidebar":"default-sidebar","second_sidebar":"default-sidebar","sticky_sidebar":"1","share_position":"top","share_float_style":"share-monocrhome","show_featured":"1","show_post_meta":"1","show_post_author":"1","show_post_author_image":"1","show_post_date":"1","post_date_format":"default","post_date_format_custom":"Y\/m\/d","show_post_category":"1","show_post_reading_time":"0","post_reading_time_wpm":"300","post_calculate_word_method":"str_word_count","show_zoom_button":"0","zoom_button_out_step":"2","zoom_button_in_step":"3","show_post_tag":"1","show_prev_next_post":"1","show_popup_post":"1","number_popup_post":"1","show_author_box":"0","show_post_related":"1","show_inline_post_related":"0"}],"image_override":[{"single_post_thumbnail_size":"crop-500","single_post_gallery_size":"crop-500"}],"trending_post_position":"meta","trending_post_label":"Trending","sponsored_post_label":"Sponsored by","disable_ad":"0","subtitle":""},"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_override_counter":{"view_counter_number":"0","share_counter_number":"0","like_counter_number":"0","dislike_counter_number":"0"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[25681],"tags":[26580,26267,26471,29715],"class_list":["post-416006","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics","tag-alice-weidel-and","tag-election-germany-2025-en"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/416006","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7876"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=416006"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/416006\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":416024,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/416006\/revisions\/416024"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/416000"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=416006"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=416006"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=416006"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}