Alice Weidel, unlikely queen of the German right -wing extremist AfD | nation

As an open gay politician who lives with her partner born in Sri Lanka in Switzerland, Alice Weidel was an unusual decision for many to lead the right-wing extremist and anti-immigration AfD in the elections on Sunday.

For their legions of political enemies, Weidel serves as a “fig leaf” for a party that is used against asylum seekers, Islam and multiculturalism, and some of the top figures have expressed revisionist views on the National Socialist past.

On Sunday, the 46-year-old, who is Margaret Thatcher, is to be a record result of her political idol, the Moscow-friendly AfD, with the surveys predicting that he will win second place in around 20 percent.

Before the elections, Weidel met in singing support for the most important allies of US President Donald Trump – in particular the Tech billionaire Elon, Elon Musk – and Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban.

She often wore a pearl chain and a pants suit and was the first AfD politician to be invited to a television debate in front of the elections in which she saved with Chancellor Olaf Scholz and his main competitor, the conservative Friedrich Merz.

All of this contributed to the “normalization” of a party, said the Spiegel magazine, after the AfD has long been kept up by the majority of German voters and protested on the streets for thousands.

“Under Alice Weidel, the party has lost its horrors for many voters, and the numerous television appearances from Weidel have accelerated the normalization of the AfD,” it said.

Weidel took part in a live stream on X with Musk in January, who enthusiastically supported the AfD as the only party that can “save Germany”.

In the meander -shaped conversation, they scolded “awakened” guidelines before they maintained plans to regulate Mars and Germany’s dark history. Weidel insisted that Hitler was a “communist”.

– ‘Uncrowned Queen’ –

In February, Weidel was invited to a private meeting with the US Vice President JD Vance on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference.

Vance had increased the AfD in a blasty speech there in which he asked Germany to fall his long -time “firewall”, which aims to isolate the AfD.

Weidel searched for support from foreign rights and recently appeared in Budapest with Orban, who described her as “the future of Germany”.

“This election campaign has made it clear that (Weidel) is the uncrowned Queen of the AfD,” said Wolfgang Schroeder, a political professor at Kassel University.

“Your visibility has grown enormously. This gave her more power within her own party.”

Weidel was born and trained in West Germany. This became a curiosity in the AfD, the nuclear voter base of which is in the former communist east of the country.

Later she lived in China and worked at the Bank of China before moving to Goldman Sachs.

Weidel came to the AfD for the first time in 2013, the year in which it was founded. In contrast to many other early members who quit when it became more open xenophobia, she remained.

Weidel represents a wing of the AfD that “strives for the right of conservatives to an independent existence, with the possibility of forming a coalition,” said Schroeder.

As a West German and gay woman, Weidel “had some problems to combine with the ideology of her party,” said political scientist Anna-Sophie Heinze from Trier University.

– ‘Remigration’ –

The SPIEGEL said that Weidel was “the perfect fig leaf” for the party, which the German domestic security service considered as a right -wing extremist.

“If someone accuses the AfD of being hostile to women, homophobic or racist, they can say that they have Weidel so that the AfD cannot be all these things, although it is so,” said the magazine.

While Weidel never hid her relationship with her partner, with whom she raises two sons, she has distanced herself from the wider LGBTQ movement.

At a party conference in January, she rejected allegations that she could not deal with the movement and accused that her critics “have no idea about the reality of my life”.

“And I have to honestly say that I will not tolerate interference in my life or my family,” she said.

Although Weidel presented a more moderate face for the right -wing extremist party, he did not shy away from some of his most radical positions when party members are used up.

At the AfD Congress, Weidel vibrations that a government that comprises the AfD would force the “total closure of the borders of Germany” and “large-scale returns”.

“I honestly tell you, if this has to be referred to as a dislike, then let it refer to it.”

CLP-FEC/FZ/GV