The AfD federal leadership is calling for the immediate cancellation of the nomination assembly for the North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW) state election and demanding a complete redrawing of the state list. This request comes from a letter sent by federal chairpersons Alice Weidel and Tino Chrupalla to the NRW AfD state executive, led by Martin Vincentz.
The letter states that multiple accounts suggesting a basic agreement on facts indicate that delegates with voting rights were either threatened or subjected to significant pressure. Vincentz, in his own recent correspondence, also did not rule out the possibility of threats or physical confrontations. However, the federal leadership stresses that merely condemning these incidents and referring the matter to state investigations is insufficient to prevent the risk of the state list not being approved for the election.
Consequently, Weidel and Chrupalla emphasize that a crucial priority for all involved parties must be to challenge the list at an inconvenient time, thereby avoiding potential negative consequences regarding election admission. They urge the state executive to work toward aborting the current assembly immediately after it continues, citing the existing risks, so that the state list can be legally established during a new nomination assembly.
Furthermore, the federal leadership advises the state executive to reconsider its rejection of mediation, given the crisis situation within the NRW state association. The message concluded that, based on all prior experience, such conflicts cannot be overcome through confrontation but only through compromise.
