AfD Joint-Leader Joerg Meuthen Resigns, Leaves Party

Joint leader of Germany's right-wing populist Alternative for Germany (Alternative für Deutschland, AfD) Joerg Meuthen MEP, has announced his resignation as co-chief as well as from the party as a whole, decrying the party's rightward tilt.

• Meuthen, a professor of political economy and finance, has served as a leader of the AfD since July 2015 and as an AfD MEP since 2017. He was viewed as a 'moderate' within the party, with critics calling him a 'fig leaf' to hide the party's more extremist elements.
• Speaking to German public broadcasters, Meuthen stated that “The heart of the party today beats very far to the right, and at an elevated rate...I do see quite totalitarian echoes here.”
• Meuthen's resignation comes on the back of a relatively poor result for the party in the 2021 federal election. The AfD won 83 seats, a loss of 11. This saw the party drop from being the third to the fifth-largest in the Bundestag.
• Yesterday, the JURI committee of the European Parliament recommended Meuthen's parliamentary immunity be lifted as a party donation investigation involving Meuthen continues in Germany.
• Meuthen's resignation leaves leader of the AfD in the Bundestag, hardline right-winger Tino Chrupalla, as the most senior figure in the party. Chrupalla, a Bundestag member from Gorlitz in the AfD heartlands in the far-east of Saxony bordering Poland and Czechia.