Right-wing candidates won at the EU Parliament primary convention of the AfD (Alternative for Germany) party, who will be critical of NATO and the United States. The AfD is currently polling at 22%, based on widespread dissatisfaction with the German government, making it the most popular party in Germany.
Right-wing representatives Maximilian Krah and Petr Bystron won the top spots for the July 2024 EU Parliament elections at the AfD primary conference in Magdeburg in former East Germany this weekend. Krah got 65.7% of votes against a little-known opponent for the Number 1 spot, and Bystron 82.4% with no challenger for the Number 2 spot. MEP Christine Anderson, who became popular in the USA with her video lambasting Canadian PM Justin Trudeau on the floor of the EU Parliament, was voted into 4th spot.
All the winners here (in German)
The AfD currently holds 9 seats in the EU Parliament after scoring 11% of the vote 2019. If the current surge continues through July 2024, the AfD stands to carry approx. 20 seats out of 96 German seats and 705 total seats in the parliament. EU Parliament representatives are not elected directly, but proportionally via lists, making the top spots shoo-ins.
MEP Maximilian Krah is currently suspended from the EU AfD caucus due to allegations of impropriety. He has been accused of being too close to Moscow, Beijing and Qatar. He attended the Annual Gala of the Young Republicans New York with Marjorie Taylor Greene, Donald Trump Jr. and Jack Posobiec in April 2022.
The second-ranked spot went to AfD Foreign Policy Spokesman in the Bundestag Petr Bystron, who received the 2018 Gateway Pundit Eagle Award and is a frequent guest on GP. Both candidates are expected to take a tough stand on supranational organizations like NATO and the EU, as the AfD passed a resolution calling to leave the EU and “reboot” it as an alliance of sovereign and patriotic nations.
The AfD delegates also voted to join the European right-wing “Identity and Democracy” party founded by the Italian Lega, Austrian Freedom Party, French National Rally, Belgian Vlaams Belang and others in 2014. The AfD already belongs to the right-wing caucus in the European Parliament, which is also called “Identity and Democracy”, but is not a member of the I&D Party so far. (If you think Washington is confusing, that’s nothing against Brussels!)
Several representatives of Europan right-wing parties spoke at the convention, including Gerolf Annemans of Belgium’s Vlaams Belang, André Ventura from Portugal’s Chega!, and Herbert Kickl of the Austrian Freedom Party (via Skype).