Alice Weidel and Tino Chrupalla, joint leaders of the Alternative for Germany (AfD), plan to stand for re-election when the far-right party holds its annual conference in June.
Speaking to journalists in Cottbus south-east of Berlin on Sunday, Chrupalla pointed to the AfD’s electoral successes in state elections in recent months and said the duo planned to continue at the head of the party and at the head of its parliamentary caucus.
Chrupalla had already made clear his intentions in an interview in January, when he said he and Weidel had professionalized and made it more successful.
Weidel and Chrupalla were elected to head the party in 2022 and confirmed in office two years later. The AfD elects its executive every two years. Its constitution allows leadership by a single person, but there is little indication in the party for a switch.
The party, formed in 2013, doubled its support in the February 2025 federal parliamentary elections to 20.8%, coming second to Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s conservative alliance.
Long strong in the formerly communist east of Germany, the AfD has made inroads in the west, taking 19.5% in Rhineland-Palatinate on the French border in elections in March, up from 8.3% in the 2021 vote.
Pre-election polling in the eastern state of Saxony-Anhalt shows the party close to taking an absolute majority in September. Germany’s mainstream parties have thus far refused to enter into government with the AfD under the “firewall” strategy aimed at containing it.