AfD leader quits party caucus hours after German election breakthrough

Germany’s rightwing nationalist party Alternative für Deutschland, in celebratory mode after coming third in elections, was delivered a bombshell by its co-leader when she announced she would not sit with the party in the Bundestag.

Frauke Petry walked out of a press conference on Monday morning at which the party leadership marvelled at its success, having secured nearly 13% of the vote and 94 seats in the federal parliament.

The departure of one of the AfD’s most prominent figures illustrates the splits in the party despite its attempts to show a united front during the election campaign.

Petry, who was on the moderate wing of the party, saw her role as that of uniting the AfD. But she has earned scorn from emboldened rightwing nationalists who have increasingly sidelined their opponents.

In April, she attempted to lead the party towards what she called a more realistic and pragmatic approach, so that, she said, it would have a chance to enter coalition governments.

But her co-leader, Jörg Meuthen, and the party’s leading election candidates, Alexander Gauland and Alice Weidel, rejected her stance, arguing the party’s goal should be to act as a strong opposition in the Bundestag to the politics of Angela Merkel, the chancellor.

Shortly after the packed press conference opened in Berlin, Petry said “after a long period of contemplation” she would not join the party in the Bundestag and would instead serve as an independent MP for her constituency in Saxony, where she narrowly beat the Christian Democrats.

She stood up and walked out with a smile, leaving her party colleagues looking stunned and prompting gasps from the press corps. Meuthen accused Petry of “dropping a bomb”, adding: “That was not discussed with us in advance. We knew nothing about it”.

Weidel said Petry’s walkout was “hard to beat in terms of irresponsibility”, and urged her to leave the party altogether “to prevent further harm”.

Hours later there were further signs of discord when four AfD MPs in the regional government in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern announced they too were leaving their own parliamentary group. A spokesman for the group said the differences between the outgoing members and the remaining ones were glaring.

“The AfD group has been dysfunctional for a long time,” the spokesman said. “Now it’s time to take the appropriate steps due to the political differences,” he said, adding that the dissenters were due to form their own parliamentary group.

Germany’s rightwing populists will arrive in the Bundestag with the best result for any new party since 1949, a higher share of the vote than either the Greens or the leftwing Die Linke have achieved in several decades.

In the states that used to form East Germany, AfD looks likely to become the second-largest party.

Founded by a group of economics professors in protest against Greek bailout programmes, the party morphed into an anti-immigrant force after the refugee crisis in the summer of 2015 when around a million refugees arrived in Germany after Merkel said they were to be allowed in. The party has successfully cashed in on fears related to the arrivals, including security and loss of identity.

The AfD’s success in the east shows the extent to which it has broadened its appeal and has reached out to those who feel disappointed by their region’s decline after reunification.

The AfD is by no means only a party of the “left-behinds” and its agenda continues to be set by western politicians advocating conventional small-state economics. A survey in June showed that 39% of the party’s supporters have a higher than average income.

Though the nationalist wing may not dominate the AfD’s Bundestag delegation, its aggressive and taboo-breaking rhetoric has been tolerated – and increasingly adopted – by the party leadership.

On Monday, Gauland said the party would make good on its promise to “hound” Merkel in the Bundestag and would push for a parliamentary investigation to examine the legality of her decisions both to allow refugees into Germany as well as over the Greek bailout.

Merkel, meanwhile, made clear that the AfD would have no influence on Germany’s foreign, European and refugee policies. Asked whether the performance of the AfDwould affect German policy in any way, Merkel replied: “I don’t think so.”

“The parties that are capable of forming coalitions with each other will seek solutions there are of course differences ... but AfD will have no influence.”