The far-right party “Alternative for Germany“ (AfG) today unanimously elected its co-chair Alice Weidel as the party's candidate for chancellor in the parliamentary elections, DPA reported, quoted by BTA.
The proposal was accepted with thunderous applause by nearly 600 party delegates gathered at the congress in the town of Riesa, in the eastern province of Saxony.
Previously, the other AfG co-chair Tino Krupala said in connection with the current opinion polls that “now it is time to surpass these 20 percent (level of public support) and continue to climb“, with the goal of Weidel taking the chancellorship.
For months, the AfG has been in second place in opinion polls – after the center-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and its Bavarian sister party, the Christian Social Union (CSU).
Despite the party's growing popularity, the AfD has little chance of forming a government, as there is no other party willing to form a coalition with it, DPA notes.
The party congress in Riesa began more than an hour late due to blockades and protests on several roads by opponents of the party.
According to the latest opinion poll before the parliamentary elections on February 23, which was published today, the AfD is closing the gap with the CDU/CSU. According to the INSA Institute survey commissioned by the newspaper "Bild", support for the AfD is increasing by 2 percentage points to 22 percent. This is the highest approval rating for the party in a year, said INSA leader Hermann Binkert.
The CDU/CSU, on the other hand, lost one percentage point of support compared to the results of the polls at the end of October and gained the trust of 30 percent of voters.