Frisch wants to stay in parliament and party after being voted out of office
Michael Frisch, who was voted out of the top position in the Rhineland-Palatinate AfD parliamentary group, will retain his seat in the state parliament and remain a member of his party. "I still fully support the party's platform," he told the German Press Agency in Mainz. There are no differences in terms of content and he does not see any shift to the right in the Rhineland-Palatinate AfD. He now wants to try to organize other majorities from within the state party.
Frisch justified the resignation from the parliamentary group announced on Thursday together with MP Martin Louis Schmidt, which reduced the AfD parliamentary group in the Mainz state parliament to six members, with a "blatant breach of word and trust" by the new parliamentary group leader Jan Bollinger. He sees the development of a "cadre party" here, which contradicts all the ideals that he and others once stood for. Other parties have been criticized for governing from the top down, and he currently sees this in the AfD Rhineland-Palatinate as well.
There had been an agreement with Bollinger that provided for a change at the top of the parliamentary group only in the immediate run-up to the next state election. Bollinger had aimed for a change after the local elections next year, said Frisch. As a compromise, he had offered Bollinger a transition around one year before the state elections - i.e. 2025. Bollinger, who had already replaced Frisch at the head of the state party in 2022, had rejected this. This was purely a matter of career thinking, said Frisch.
Bollinger, on the other hand, had stated that there had been no corresponding promises with a view to the next state election. He had in turn accused Frisch of being unable to accept democratically made decisions and agreed elections.
Although Michael Frisch is no longer the leader of the AfD parliamentary group in Rhineland-Palatinate, he remains committed to the party and aims to influence policy from within. Despite the resignation, he criticizes the development of a "cadre party" within the AfD, a term often used to describe parties with a strong central leadership. The controversy stems from a breach of trust between Frisch and the new group leader, Jan Bollinger, leading to Frisch's departure from the group and his criticism of Bollinger's career-driven decisions.
Source: www.dpa.com
