Neubauer Coporation Getting your Trinity Audio player ready... |
Alice Weidel is the candidate for chancellor of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD), a party dominated by men and which usually attracts supporters and leaders with a marked sexism, homophobic overtones and a hard anti-immigrant stance.
Weidel has become the AfD’s candidate for chancellor in the early elections scheduled for February 23 following the breakup of the governing coalition. The announcement is historic. It is the first time in its 11 years of existence that the far-right AfD, which has been growing with each election, has put forward a candidate, in this case a female candidate, to lead the future German government.
Until now, only the two major parties, the Social Democratic Party of Chancellor Olaf Scholz and the conservative CDU of Angela Merkel , had announced their candidate in advance. It was widely assumed that they were the only parties with a chance of forming a government in the Bundestag (parliament) with the help of occasional and minority partners.
The other parties were limited to participating in the elections with the aim of forming a future coalition that would bring them closer to power through a legislative alliance and a handful of members in the cabinet. They did not announce any candidate for chancellor because they knew they had absolutely no chance of leading the government. In Germany, the system is parliamentary. It is the legislators who elect the chancellor.
Who is Alice Weidel, the new face of the German far right?
The AfD has 17% of support nationwide, second only to the CDU, in the average of the latest polls released in the country. However, it has made significant gains in recent months. In fact, on 1 September, it won in Thuringia and came second in Saxony . It was the first electoral victory in a Land (state) for the far right since the end of World War II.
Now it is going for more. By announcing a candidate for chancellor, it is seeking to position itself as an alternative to power, something that is unlikely for now as long as the multi-party pact to prevent the far right from coming to power remains in place. All German parties have pledged not to form a government alliance with the AfD. They accuse it of neo-Nazi positions and of being anti-democratic . The question is how long this agreement can last if the radical right continues to grow. In Thuringia, it won more than 30% of the vote.
“She is one of the few visible women within her party. She is very intelligent and capable. The vast majority of AfD MPs are men,” Svenja Blanke, director and representative in Argentina of the Friedrich Ebert Political Foundation (FES), told TN .
Weidel is 45 years old and was born in North Rhine-Westphalia. He graduated in economics and business administration from the University of Beyreuth with a scholarship from the Konrad Adenauer Foundation. During his private career, he worked at Goldman Sachs and Allianz Global Investors Europe. He also speaks fluent Mandarin, having lived in China for six years.
Her private life seems to lean more towards progressive positions than the hard right. Weidel is a lesbian and is in a relationship with Sri Lankan immigrant and film producer
Sarah Bossard . They are not married, but are in a civil union and raising two adopted children together.
At first glance, her lifestyle choice seems to contradict the tenets of the radical right. But she claims that the AfD is not a homophobic party.
A few years ago, she explained that she decided to join the party not in spite of her homosexuality, but precisely because she is a lesbian . She argued at the time that gays and lesbians in Germany do not dare to walk freely in the streets for fear of attacks by Muslim immigrants. She says she supports a Canadian-style quota system for immigrants that privileges qualified people and rejects the current policy of sheltering migrants from the Middle East.
“Germany is in one of the worst crises in its history ,” Weidel said.
She also rejects gender politics, defends the traditional family and is against same-sex marriage. However, she does support civil unions between people of the same sex and rejects the so-called woke agenda . “I don’t want anyone approaching my children with their gender idiocy or their first sexuality classes,” she said in one of her most memorable phrases.
She entered politics in 2017 when she was elected as a member of parliament for the AfD. She then declared herself an admirer of former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher , the “Iron Lady”. In addition, from her seat, she defended Germany’s integration into the European Union with conditions, although she called for leaving the Eurozone to have a national currency again.
A year later, she became the leader of the right-wing radical bloc in the Bundestag. In 2021, she was elected co-leader of the AfD at national level alongside party leader Tino Chrupalla .
“Her nomination as a candidate for chancellor shows that things are changing in Germany. It is a way of showing that they have ambitions and that they are an important party,” Blanke said. “I think the agreement not to form a coalition government with the AfD will hold in these elections, but if the country does not solve the major social and economic problems it faces, the situation will be different in four years . In 2029 there may be even more anger towards the traditional parties,” she concluded.