The former CDU politician Erika Steinbach failed in her application for a top position in the AfD.
At the federal party conference of the AfD in Riesa on Saturday, the 78-year-old lost 42.2 percent to the member of the Bundestag Peter Boehringer in a contested vote for the vice party chairmanship.
Steinbach only became an AfD member this year;
However, she had been committed to the party since she left the CDU in 2017.
"I just don't want to stand by and watch our beautiful country being ruined into the abyss any longer," said Steinbach in Riesa, explaining her application.
Millions of citizens are standing on the "economic abyss" and freedom of expression is "under pressure like never before in the history of the Federal Republic," she complained.
Steinbach has been chair of the AfD-affiliated Desiderius Erasmus Foundation since 2018.
In January, after the previous AfD leader Jörg Meuthen left the party, she announced her entry into the party.
She had previously had a long career in the CDU - in 1990 she became a member of the CDU Bundestag and in 2000 she was elected to the CDU federal executive board.