With the AfD’s position on Russia, China and Iran, the party has “crossed too many red lines,” says Joana Cotar, a member of the AfD Bundestag. She no longer wants to support that and leaves the party after ten years of membership – and with it the parliamentary group.
Joana Cotar, member of the Bundestag, leaves the AfD. The Hessian MP announced her departure from the party and parliamentary group on her Facebook page. On her website, Cotar, who counted herself among the party’s moderate currents and had meanwhile been a member of the federal executive committee, wrote: “In the fight against opponents within the party, constant bullying is the order of the day – encouraged by the top of the party and its networks.” In addition, the “fight for a better Germany” has receded into the background.
In contrast to other former AfD members who had left the party in recent years, the digital politician did not justify her move directly with a further shift to the right by the AfD. Cotar accused the AfD of having “crossed too many red lines”. But she wrote: “The extreme right-wing fringe of the AfD was and is not the problem, it was always in the minority.” More problematic are “the opportunists who give up their convictions for mandates, let themselves be bought and tomorrow represent the opposite of what they still stand for today”.
In addition, Cotar criticized “the close proximity of leading AfD officials to the President of the Russian Federation,” Vladimir Putin. She doesn’t want to and won’t support this anymore. She stated: “The AfD’s pandering to the dictatorial and inhuman regimes in Russia, China and now also Iran are unworthy of an upright, democratic and patriotic party.”
Cotar started in 2021 together with Joachim Wundrak to lead the AfD as a top duo in the federal election campaign. The two lost in a member survey. Tino Chrupalla and Alice Weidel won the race.
Cotar is a close confidant of Jörg Meuthen. The long-standing AfD chairman left the party at the beginning of the year. Meuthen combined his resignation with harsh criticism of the state of his party: the way the party is developing, he “doesn’t give the whole project a future anymore,” said the Essen native in January. “I tried to move the AfD in a different direction,” said Meuthen. “I failed with that.” In his opinion, parts of the party “are not based on the free democratic basic order”.
“I clearly see totalitarian echoes there,” said Meuthen. Especially in the Corona policy, the AfD has developed something cult-like. “The heart of the party today beats very far to the right and actually beats high all the time.”