Why did Frauke Petry quit the AfD?
Frauke Petry has plunged the far-right Alternative for Germany Party (AfD) into chaos by quitting as leader just one day after a historic election result.
The AfD became the third largest party in the Bundestag on Sunday, after winning an impressive 12.6 per cent of the vote.
But the party already looks to be in crisis following Ms Petry’s shock resignation.
Walking out of a press conference in Berlin, the 42-year-old said: “I’ve decided I won’t be part of the AfD’s group in the German parliament but will initially be an individual member of parliament in the lower house.
“I think we should be open today that there is a disagreement over content in the AfD and I think we shouldn’t hush this up because society is calling for an open debate.”
She refused to answer any additional questions and declined to comment on whether she would remain the AfD’s co-leader, but said she would clarify her position publicly in the coming days.
AfD politicians have not reacted well to news.
Jörg Meuthen, who co-founded the AfD with Ms Petry, accused her of “dropping a bomb” on the party.
He said: “That was not discussed with us in advance. We knew nothing about it.”
Alexander Gauland, one of AfD’s election candidates, told Reuters: “It’s always a shame when someone very talented leaves the party and Frauke Petry is very talented.
“But I must note that she wasn’t much help recently in the campaign.”
Despite being hugely critical of Angela Merkel’s immigration policy, Ms Pertry was considered to be on the moderate wing of the AfD.
She has butted heads with other senior members in recent months and, in April, she refused to run the AfD’s election campaign.
During the run up to polling day, she admitted that she understood why some voters were shocked by some of her party’s extreme policies.
She once called for senior member Bjoern Hoecke to be banned from the AfD, after he described Berlin’s Holocaust Memorial as a “monument of shame”.
Who is Frauke Petry?
Ms Petry was born in Dresden in the Free State of Saxony in Germany.
She earned a degree in chemistry at Reading University in the UK, before gaining a doctorate from the University of Göttingen.
The 42-year-old mother-of-five describes herself as a “national conservative” and is strongly opposed to the way Mrs Merkel has dealt with the immigration crisis.
In 2016, she controversially suggested that police officers should be allowed to “use firearms if necessary” to prevent illegal immigrants crossing into Germany.
Ms Petry is widely credited with transforming the AfD from a party concerned with the failures of the eurozone to the first far-right party to enter the Bundestag in more than half a century.