AfD sets personnel course for state election in Saxony

In the coming days, the Saxon AfD wants to set the personnel course for the state elections on September 1 in Glauchau. After repeated mishaps, this time the state list is to be drawn up without errors. The AfD has scheduled four days for the procedure. AfD national chairman Tino Chrupalla is also expected to attend today's kick-off on Thursday. The delegates at the party conference are expected to elect around 60 candidates.

The state executive committee has not proposed a list. In principle, every seat is free. However, the first places are considered uncontested. No contesting candidates are expected here. State and parliamentary group leader Jörg Urban is expected to take first place, with General Secretary Jan Zwerg in second place. Deputy state parliament president André Wendt, AfD state vice-president Joachim Keiler and interior politician Sebastian Wippel are expected to take the other places.

In the run-up to the 2019 state elections, the state election committee decided to shorten the AfD state list, citing formal shortcomings. It therefore only admitted 18 of the 61 AfD candidates. The AfD saw this as a political maneuver. The Leipzig Constitutional Court later ruled that the AfD could run with 30 list candidates. Despite winning many direct mandates, it was only able to take 38 of the 39 state parliamentary seats to which it was entitled.

There had already been a row over the AfD list in the 2014 state elections. As a candidate on the list was removed from the list by his own party before the election, the election review committee of the Saxon state parliament had to deal with the case for years. The AfD man concerned contested the election.

This year, the AfD wants to become the strongest force in Saxony. It has already achieved this in two federal elections. In most polls, it was recently ahead of the CDU.