Petry does a Lucke, or: The AfD splits again (whimper edition)

The AfD’s short history is once more repeating itself, never exactly a tragedy, but ever more farcical. Back in 2015, Bernd Lucke,the then prominent face of the party, became increasingly worried about its radicalisation. He tried to strengthen his position as leader, set up a network of like-minded individuals within the party, was accused of data theft by Frauke Petry when he tried to access the central mailing list, finally left the AfD after he was deposed by Petry, and founded a new party of his own that was supposed to be nutter-free and became utterly irrelevant in the process. He took with him many of the more moderate party elites, including most of the AfD’s MEPs.

Slightly more than two years down the line, Frauke Petry, Lucke’s nemesis, party co-chair and the erstwhile face of the AfD’s radicalisation, leaves a party that has become too radical for her taste. She takes with her her seat in the Bundestag, a small number of MPs at the state and federal level, and her husband, one of the two remaining MEPs for the AfD. The AfD has accused her of data theft, because – you would have guessed it – she allegedly tried to get hold of the central mailing list. More to the point, Petry and friends have registered a new party even before the election on September 24, which is called (and I kid you not) The Blue Party. You might think of the FPÖ, or even Le Pen’s Marine blue revolution. But Petry’s vision for the thing is this: To become “a CSU (the ever so slightly populist Bavarian sister part of Merkel’s CDU) at the national level”. If you tone down the rhetoric a tiny bit, that is not so far removed from Lucke’s idea of a liberal-conservative party to the right of the CDU and could have worked for Lucke’s AfD ca 2014. Once more, life imitates political satire.

8 thoughts on “Petry does a Lucke, or: The AfD splits again (whimper edition)”

  1. I disagree. Petry is much more charismatic than Lucke ever wanted to be. While Lucke focused only on getting Germany out of the Euro currency, Petry offers more of a dutch ‘Forum for Democracy’ agenda.
    She isn’t a dumb person either. She waited for the election to be over so that the party wouldn’t suddenly loose votes and her seat gives her a voice in the national level.

    Reply

Leave a Comment

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.