a former Goldman analyst who leads far-flung Germany

Alice Weidel could not have hoped for better conditions during her appointment as the chancellor candidate of Germany’s far-right Alternative.

Fresh from the internet chat room new fan Elon Muskthanked Tesla CEO and partner of the incoming US president Donald Trump for his willingness to announce the AfD meeting on his social media platform X.

“Freedom of speech!” he announced in English, before entering fiery anti-immigration speech at a conference held in the eastern German town of Riesa this weekend.

Weidel’s courtship of the world’s richest man is part of an effort to tap into the populist wave that propelled Giorgia Meloni to power in Italy in 2022, Marine Le Pen’s National Rally to win the first time in France’s elections this summer ago. and delivered Trump’s re-election bid in November.

Senior members of the AfD party were also jubilantly on the right an important event in Austrian historywhere the leader of the Freedom party last week was given the opportunity to form a government.

Andreas Rödder, a historian at Johannes Gutenberg University in Mainz said: “It is part of a major change in western democracies. “The pendulum is swinging to the right and this is what the AfD has aligned itself with.”

At home in Germany, the party has achieved a series of historic successes. It came second in European elections in June, and last fall won 33 percent in regional elections with strong showings in three eastern states – including Saxony, where Riesa is based – even after accusations about connections between senior party members and. Russian and Chinese espionage.

Polls now suggest that the AfD – which is anti-Muslim, lambasts cultural “revival” and wants to lift sanctions on Russia – is on course to claim its first second place in the federal election in March 23 with a record 20% of states. vote.

Weidel, 45, disagrees with the stereotype. He is married to Sri Lankan-born Swiss filmmaker Sarah Bossard, with whom he lives with their two children in Switzerland. After graduating, he spent time as an analyst at Goldman Sachs in Frankfurt and later wrote a doctoral thesis on China’s pension system.

Critics see Weidel as the party’s attempt to present a more positive face to society in a country where many are still deeply attached to avoiding repeating the mistakes that led to their dark Nazi era. During smiling television interviews or in videos posted on TikTok, his appearance is often deliberately softer than some of the right-wing radicals in his party.

But there was no light side to him on display during his 20-minute speech in Riesa, where he appealed to the party faithful by rousing the “leftist crowd” of protesters who delayed the start of the assembly. for two hours.

He embraced the much-maligned “immigration” rhetoric as he promised “massive deportations” and slammed a series of attacks in recent years by immigrants and asylum seekers.

Many saw his scathing speech as a nod to firebrand deputy Björn Höcke, who led the party in regional elections in the eastern state of Thuringia in September and has been convicted of using nationalist military language. storm of Adolf Hitler.

In the party’s latest attempt to talk about the Nazi era without breaking the law, a regional party chief encouraged the crowd to sing “Alice für Deutschland” – the banned phrase “Alles für Deutschland”, which means ” everything for Germany”.

Those who knew Weidel during her financial years two decades ago struggle to reconcile the woman with today’s far-flung leader.

Jim Dilworth, an American banker based in Germany who worked with him at Goldman and later at Allianz Global Investors, said he was not positive at the time. He said: “The ‘outlier’ in his opinion was his skepticism about the euro as a common currency.

Dilworth added that when he later expressed surprise at his decision to join the AfD, he told him that “it will take me 20 years” to make the same progress in the Christian Democrats of the center. “That’s why he chose this party. I think there is a lot of potential there. ”

The co-leader of the AfD denied that he had said that. He told the Financial Times through his spokesman: “I didn’t say that. It makes no sense. Nobody, and not at that time, joined the AfD for the sake of their work.”

Weidel’s political persona is one of carefully controlled conservatism. She wears white shirts, often with pearls, and her hair is in a neat low bun. He argues that his party is not extreme right-wing but is traditionally liberal.

Asked to explain the apparent contradiction between his private life and his party’s opposition to “sexism and awakening” in 2023, he said: “I’m not a queer person. I just married that woman I have known him for 20 years.” Or, as one senior party official put it: “He’s just gay biologically but not politically.”

Kay Gottschalk, an AfD member of parliament who met Weidel for the first time when he joined the national executive committee in 2015, said he was “perfect” for reaching out to groups the party normally does not serve. , including women voters.

His critics warn that it is an act. The co-leader of the ruling Social Democrats, Lars Klingbeil, described him as “a wolf in sheep’s clothing”.

Critics and even some of his allies within the AfD argue that, as the party looks set to increase its support from 10 percent in the previous federal election in 2021, Weidel could take part credit only.

Deep public dissatisfaction with Angela Merkel’s 2015 decision to accept nearly 1 million migrants and asylum seekers has helped the AfD grow from its 2013 origins as a single-issue party. one against the euro.

The deep dislike of SPD deputy councilor Olaf Scholz’s three-way “traffic lights” combined, which collapsed in Novemberit was also important in sending new voters to the AfD. So are the sentiments about the election leader, Christian Democrat leader Friedrich Merz, as well as widespread anger about Germany’s stagnating economy and the future of the country’s manufacturing industry.

“The dissatisfaction of the other parties is great,” said a senior AfD official. “We benefit from that.”

However Weidel, who has been co-leader of the AfD since 2019, has also proven to be a survivor in the notoriously fractious outfit. Insiders say he has worked hard to control the powerful side of the party.

No matter how well it performs, the party has no hope of taking power in Berlin after next month’s election because of the “firewall” created by Germany’s main parties, all of which have refused to form. alliance with the AfD.

But its officials are already looking to the next elections, scheduled for 2029, when they hope to be even more disappointed – encouraged by Austria’s Herbert Kickl, who last week was asked by the president of country to form a government after attempts by major parties to exclude his Freedom party failed.

Rödder, the historian said: “It looks like a model, and they are using it badly.” They point to Austria saying: ‘It’s Germany in four years’.