The former Goldman Sachs banker is openly gay, has a Sri Lankan-born partner and a family based in Switzerland. Yet she leads a party campaigning on strict immigration controls and a traditional definition of family. Alice Weidel has moved to the centre of Germany’s political storm after her far-right AfD won a historic 43.8% in Saxony-Anhalt.
Post-election clash in parliament
Weidel rejects claims that her personal life makes her political position contradictory. As the AfD moved towards tougher positions on immigration, national identity and social policy, Weidel rose with it. After the election results came out, Alice Weidel (head of the far-right AfD party) and Friedrich Merz (the leader of Germany/Chancellor) had a huge, noisy argument inside the German parliament (the Bundestag). She blamed his government for ruining Germany’s economy. Merz argued that removing large numbers of workers with immigrant backgrounds would also hurt the German economy. US Vice President JD Vance has also criticised the political firewall around the AfD. Those interventions have made Germany’s debate over the party part of a wider argument about the growth of nationalist and anti-immigration movements in Europe.
The Alternative for Germany, or AfD, won 43.8% of the vote in Saxony-Anhalt, more than twice the 17.2% secured by Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s Christian Democrats. It took 39 of the 83 seats in the state parliament. She joined the AfD in 2013, when the young party was largely known for its opposition to eurozone bailouts.
She has argued that tighter immigration controls would make gay people safer and has previously said that expanding same-sex marriage rights was not a political priority for her. Alice Weidel attacked first: She bragged about her election win and told Chancellor Merz that his political party got crushed (“pulverised”). Friedrich Merz hit back hard: Merz criticised her party’s plan to deport immigrants (“remigration”). He said that calling it “remigration” is just a fancy word for ethnic cleansing (forcing a specific group of people out of a country). He called her and her party a “destructive force”. He said his government supports deporting people without a legal right to remain but drew a line between that policy and the AfD’s plans.
