DW/ Yiannis Papadimitriou

The far-right party “Alternative for Germany” (AfD) is certainly one of the winners of the night in these European elections.

Based on the first predictions of the election result, it gathers a percentage of around 16%.

It is the best result in its history, which elevates it to the second political power.

In fact, in the former East Germany, the AfD is now the leading force with 27.1% against 20.7% of the Christian Democrats (CDU) and 11.4% of the Social Democrats (SPD). All this comes just months before local elections in Saxony, Thuringia and Brandenburg, where the xenophobic party aspires to elect local prime ministers for the first time in its history.

AfD co-chairman Tino Krupala recalled this goal on Sunday night, amid cheers, speaking to the party’s supporters. “It is a strong message ahead of the local elections in September, we are now the number one force in the eastern states,” he said. “We succeeded, because overall the world now has a more critical attitude towards Europe” states co-president Alice Weidel on the first channel of German television (ARD).

Don’t they affect the scandals?

Just a few weeks ago, the AfD reached 20% in the polls.

Since then, a series of scandals have intervened, in which Maximilian Kra and Peter Bistron, No. 1 and No. 2 respectively on the party’s Euro-ballot, were involved, who were temporarily removed from the pre-election race. It seems that the scandals cost the AfD a few percentage points, but nothing more.

“I think the voters don’t ‘bite’ any more,” Alice Weidel confidently comments on the ARD microphone. To the journalist’s persistent questions about whether Maximilian Kra and Peter Bistron will leave for good or return to active action, she says: “I am not commenting on that, the decision will be made by the party bodies.”

After the temporary departure of Cra and Bistron, a large part of the pre-election campaign was shouldered by the 37-year-old René Aust, No. 3 on the AfD Euro-ballot. “It’s a great result,” he said on Sunday afternoon on the ZDF television network. “I am proud of the voters, who choose as they want, not as someone else wants,” he said meaningfully.

“We took a break from our relationship”

The question now is which political group the AfD will join in the European Parliament for the next five years.

Germany’s populist MEPs are currently “Unregistered”, following their recent expulsion from Marine Le Pen’s Identity and Democracy (ID) Group. The reason for the conflict with Le Pen and the expulsion from the ID group were some disturbing comments by Maximilian Kra about the action of the SS in World War II.

Information from the magazine DER SPIEGEL states that Kra is moving behind the scenes to form a new political group in Brussels, together with Eastern European far-right MPs.

But on Sunday Rene Aust, amid euphoria over the election result, made an interesting statement to ZDF: “We took a short break in our relationship with Mrs. Le Pen, but tomorrow we will seek contacts again.” Is he just expressing his personal opinion? Did he “get away”? Or did he “give the news”? Answers are expected from Monday at 10 a.m. in Berlin, when the AfD’s party bodies meet.