Alternative for Germany (AfD) reaffirmed her ambition to take over power in the party congress Germany.
At the end of the rally in the capital of the federal state of Thuringia, Erfurt, re-elected co-president Alice Weidel said: "We are the strongest political force. We are a people's party with 30 percent support. And we will govern." In doing so, she referred to current public opinion surveys, writes DW.
Previously, the delegates confirmed the tandem at the head of the party. Weidel, who was the leader of the AfD list in the 2025 Bundestag elections, slightly improved her result compared to the elections two years ago and won 81,3 percent of the vote.
Its co-president Tino Krupala, on the other hand, lost a significant part of his support and received only 70 percent of the vote. It is considered a warning for him, considering that this duo had no opponents.
For Weidel, it is even more important that numerous of her supporters were elected in the presidential elections, partly in direct contests between the candidates. With this, this doctor of economic sciences additionally strengthened her influence on the political direction of the AfD.
Within the party and in the media, her ambition to lead the AfD alone in the future has been discussed for a long time.
Wind at the back of the far right
The composition of the presidency indicates that the AfD will politically insist on radical distancing from other parties in the future. As many as six of the 14 members of the new presidency come from provincial organizations that the German services for the protection of the constitutional order run as proven right-wing extremists.
Jean-Pascal Homme, a far-right politician who is also the president of the new party youth group "Generation Germany", joins the party leadership.
In the past, Hom had to leave his job in the AfD caucus in the parliament of the federal state of Brandenburg because of his ties to extremist circles.
In the future, Stefan Meller from Thuringia, one of Björn Hecke's closest political associates, will also sit in the presidency. In 2025, Hecke was sentenced to fines on two occasions because he repeatedly used the slogan of the criminal SA from the Nazi period. His close associate Meller in the presidency should be in charge of relations with the German security services.
Service for the Protection of the Constitutional Order against the AfD
Namely, the German domestic intelligence service is a thorn in the side of the AfD. In already five federal states – Brandenburg, Lower Saxony, Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt and Thuringia – the AfD is classified as a proven extremist organization.
In six other provinces, as well as at the federal level, the party is being treated as a suspected case of right-wing extremism and is under surveillance.
The reason is the disparaging statements of numerous party members directed against parliamentary democracy and the independent judiciary. It is particularly significant that AfD politicians question the legal equality of German citizens, especially when it comes to migrants, Muslims or blacks.
And the new member of the federal party committee, Stefan Müller, has questioned the equality of German citizens in the past. So, for example, in 2023 on the Twitter platform, he wrote: "Whether someone is German is decided by what is between their ears, not what is written on paper."
In contrast to previous years, the political struggles for power at the party congress this time took place without serious conflicts and divisions. At earlier AfD rallies, there were violent confrontations and open attacks on the stage. On several occasions, the presidents of the party were forced to resign after sharp verbal conflicts.
Party discipline in the foreground
In Erfurt, however, everything was subordinated to discipline. With three more important elections for federal state parliaments to be held in 2026, and the AfD in Saxony-Anhalt and Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania seeking to win a sufficient majority and install a state premier for the first time, no conflict was allowed to mar the party's favorable results in the polls. They succeeded in that.
But due to the absence of open conflicts, political discussions were also absent. Re-elected co-president Alice Weidel mostly refrained from concrete statements. She remained a general critic of the policies of German governments over the past 20 years.
"Saving the euro, saving the refugees, saving the climate, saving the Ukrainians, along with the simultaneous consistent deindustrialization and disastrous energy policies, are putting too much burden on the people of our country," Weidel said.
In the past, she and the AfD have demanded a return to nuclear energy, the restoration of Russian gas supplies, the abolition of climate protection measures and the end of German support for Ukraine, which was attacked by Russia in 2022 and has been defending itself from aggression ever since.
At the congress, Weidel stuck to the claim that the AfD wants to take responsibility for running the country. She did not propose any concrete measures.
Instead, to the rapturous approval of the delegates, she appealed to the German national spirit: "Let's paint the whole country black, red and gold. Black, red and gold - that's what we live for! Those are our colors!"
Peaceful protests in Erfurt
The AfD party congress in Erfurt was followed by mostly peaceful protests, although a part of the demonstrators tried to block the entry of the AfD delegates into the hall, so the police also intervened.
According to estimates, tens of thousands of people gathered. The protests were organized by trade unions, the Catholic and Protestant churches, political parties and numerous other organizations.
At one gathering, Jens-Christian Wagner, director of the Memorial Center of the former Buchenwald concentration camp in Thuringia, told the AfD:
"Remigrate to the history books!", alluding to earlier demands by some AfD politicians that foreigners from Germany be "remigrated", meaning expelled from the country, including those who have been living there legally for years.
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