Regional voting - AfD member Frosch departs from the party following disagreement
Karlheinz Frosch, a politician from the AfD party, intends to leave both the party and the state parliament following a disagreement with his party's state association and faction. This was revealed in a statement by a spokesperson for Frosch on Monday in response to media inquiries. The state parliament also confirmed they received such a message. Frosch had established a list for a district council election in Saalfeld-Rudolstadt against the wishes of Thuringia's AfD state chairman, Björn Höcke.
The Thuringian state association sought to have the existing list annulled and replace it with a new one. However, the candidates on the original list were not willing to comply. This led to the creation of a second list, dubbed AfL, which then placed Höcke in a tricky position. He ended up supporting the Alternative for the District (AfL) list over the official AfD list. In the end, Frosch's list received about 20% of the votes while the AfL list attracted 14%.
To add fuel to the fire, expulsion proceedings were initiated against some members of the AfD list. Supporters of Frosch even called for Höcke to step down from his position. It's unclear if this was an isolated incident or if other backers of Frosch plan to depart from the party. Thuringia's AfD is categorized as a securely right-wing extremist group by the state constitution protection and is under surveillance. Elections for the state parliament will take place on September 1st.
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Source: www.stern.de
