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It is rare for the AfD to cast envious glances at the Greens.
But it does happen.
After Annalena Baerbock was nominated as the top candidate of the Greens on Monday, the AfD MEP Maximilian Krah described this as the “communicative top performance” of the political opponent.
Krah added that his own party now needs "the top team" and lamented, "The ongoing delays are damaging the cause."
In fact, weeks will pass in the AfD before the top election campaign personnel is clarified.
After the party congress on April 10th passed the decision on a top duo to the members, pairs of candidates must first find each other - only those are allowed to stand - before a basic primary election can take place.
There will be no result before mid-May, and it is completely open which couples will compete.
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Until then, there is time for another top question.
Namely for how much internal party criticism the majority of the federal executive committee gathered around party leader Jörg Meuthen can still withstand.
Two events currently show how deep the rifts are between the majority of the board and the AfD currents that are still further to the right.
Trouble with a patron saint of the most radical
One process stems from the party congress.
After the Thuringian regional chief Björn Höcke had initially enforced numerous tightening of the election program, the protagonist of the officially dissolved wing caused his opponent Meuthen serious trouble with one person.
It is about leading a working group that the federal executive had set up to deal with the protection of the constitution.
Roland Hartwig, Member of the Bundestag, has been in charge of this position since 2018.
In the office he developed into a kind of patron saint of the most radical members.
The AfD member of the Bundestag Roland Hartwig
Source: picture alliance / Geisler-Fotop
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He even said about the Brandenburg ex-head of the state, Andreas Kalbitz, who was no longer part of the party, that he was “not a right-wing extremist”.
Because Hartwig also said that the Office for the Protection of the Constitution wanted to monitor the AfD anyway and that one hardly had to follow its guidelines, the party executive withdrew from him the leadership of the working group.
But at the party congress ten days ago, a resolution was passed shortly before the end of the already thinned ranks of delegates at Höcke's instigation, according to which Hartwig should get the line back.
But the board does not want to implement this decision.
In a letter sent to all members on Monday, which WELT has, the board points out that the party conference resolution is "unlawful" because it interferes with "the very own organizational area of the federal board".
The AfD and the protection of the constitution
In addition, the resolution was voted on at the party congress without adequate discussion.
In addition, the board of directors has “the confidence in Dr.
Hartwig fundamentally lost ”.
Hartwig acted “all too often uncoordinated”, “especially with regard to the assessment of the Kalbitz case”.
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This rejection by the board of the party congress decision outraged the base supporters of the wing and deepened the quarrels within the board.
AfD Vice Stephan Brandner tweeted that he considered “this procedure by the majority around Jörg Meuthen to be an affront to the highest body of the #AfD.” Failure to implement the party conference decision would harm the party “internally and externally”.
The ongoing dispute over Sayn-Wittgenstein
In the second process, the federal executive stands against a state executive.
It's about the Schleswig-Holstein ex-state chief Doris von Sayn-Wittgenstein.
She was excluded from the AfD in 2019, among other things because of her advertisement, uncovered by WELT, for an association co-founded by Holocaust deniers.
Last week the Berlin regional court found in a not yet legally binding decision that she was still a party member because the exclusion ordered by the AfD federal arbitration court had not come about in accordance with the statutes.
The AfD federal board wants to appeal against this "in any case", as it says in a statement.
This was immediately countered by the Schleswig-Holstein state executive, in which Sayn-Wittgenstein has loyal supporters.
The state board immediately sent a "short message" to the members there, according to which "the statement of the federal board was disrespectful to the regional court".
Doris von Sayn-Wittgenstein
Source: pa / dpa / Frank Molter
Attached was an assessment of the chairman of the Schleswig-Holstein AfD regional arbitration court, Gereon Bollmann, who was very far to the right and who spoke out against Sayn-Wittgenstein's exclusion in 2019 and who now wrote that the federal board had "expressed a legal understanding, which he represented as a representative our AfD as a party based on the rule of law should not have shown it better ”.
This makes it clear that the majority of the federal executive board, even if, in their opinion, it is about clear right-wing extremism, cannot count on the support of important party bodies. With a view to the upcoming election of the AfD federal leadership in the autumn, it is therefore ambiguous what is stated in the member's letter on the Hartwig case: "A federal party congress could undoubtedly vote out a federal executive."