Alexander Gauland chose a martial term. After Mariana Harder-Kühnel had failed in the third ballot as a candidate for the post of Bundestag vice-president, the AfD chief spoke of a "further declaration of war" against his party.

The words of the group leader were no coincidence, but part of a strategy.

Unanimously, the AfD parliamentary group decided on Thursday, every session week to send a new candidate into the race. The goal is to "disrupt the parliamentary operation as much as possible," the SPIEGEL learned from the ranks of the group.

The AfD feels snubbed, but some had hoped to finally send a candidate with the 44-year-old lawyer from Hesse into the race against which the reservations of the other parties would not be as strong as once against the also failed candidate Albrecht Glaser.

However, approving signals from the leadership of the FDP and Union factions initially fed confidence. In the end, the plan crashed - with a bang. Harder-Kühnel received only 199 yes votes, even fewer than in the previous two ballots.

According to a representative poll by the online polling agency Civey for SPIEGEL ONLINE , a majority of respondents (51.4 percent) rate the failure of Harder-Kühnels as positive; however, a good third (34.5 percent) rated the election outcome negatively. The total sample consisted of 5012 people, the statistical error is 2.7 percent.

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Failed candidate Harder-Kühnel

According to the rules of procedure, this deputy post - sixth in the Bundestag presidency - is actually assigned to the AfD parliamentary group and has been vacant since autumn 2017. The next steps will now be discussed at the next group meeting next Tuesday.

Harder-Kühnel had last - except with the left - held talks with representatives of other factions, their chances explored and presented as a moderate AfD candidate.

Now, the AfD group is apparently on a confrontation course. "At least ten counting candidates", possibly even "15 to 20" could be proposed by the group, it was said on Friday from factions. Whether the candidates will be sent in three ballots each seems to be still open. This was the case with Glaser and Harder-Kühnel. Furthermore, the fraction also keeps open a so-called organ court before the Federal Constitutional Court.

The AfD has another option: to send Harder-Kühnel to a fourth ballot. However, they needed a resolution of the Council of Elders of the Bundestag. However, a fourth ballot was "unlikely", it said from the faction. Most recently, it had come in the fall of 2005 in the Bundestag in a similar case: The then left-wing politician Lothar Bisky presented himself to a fourth ballot and again fell as the vice-presidential candidate of the Bundestag. As a result, the left initially waived to occupy the office, only in the spring of 2006 Petra Pau was then elected as a candidate of the Left. She is also currently one of the Vice Presidents of Parliament.

The mood in the AfD itself is irritated. Shortly before the third ballot on Thursday, even in the AfD, resistance against their own candidate Harder-Kühnel stirred. It was "by no means independent", but tightly wired with the "wing" of the Thuringian AFD-right wing outside Björn Höcke, it said. Several MPs told SPIEGEL that. "I do not want someone like that to become part of the state organ of the Bundestag presidency," one of them declared, "that's why I will not vote for them." Another: "I can not agree with my conscience to choose her."

The corresponding article on SPIEGEL ONLINE caused a stir in the ranks of the AfD. At the faction special session after the failure of Harder-Kühnel the critical quotes were discussed. It had gone up high, the word of "party damaging behavior" had fallen against the citation, it was then said from faction circles. However, no one had outed as a critic Harder-Kühnels.

The AFD has been complaining for some time that it will withhold seats in three other sub-committees of the Bundestag as well as in two endowment trustees (read an overview here). So far she has failed with all her candidates. In these cases, it was heard from the AFD Group, but the party wants to act differently than in the case of the vice-presidency in the Bundestag presidium. It seems that no counting candidates are sent into the race, but that they are still trying to get the respective experts through to the appropriate committees.