Commentators on social media have suggested that the ADR has taken a step further to the right and could well become a “right wing nationalist party” following the election of Fred Keup as its new president.
Keup, a teacher and president of FC Kehlen football club, received 86 of 94 votes at the party’s annual general assembly in Roeser on Sunday and replaces the long-servings Jean Schoos as the party’s leader.
In his acceptance speech Keup said he had long admired the ADR for its courage. “For saying what many people think, but that most people daren’t say. The ADR is the party that best understands the concerns of Luxembourgers,” he told the congress. He even appeared to welcome the party’s reputation as populist, saying that the ADR represents all social groups.
The ADR is a conservative party that will not give up on our language or our identity.
Keup said that the party will continue to fight for social issues. « The ADR is a conservative party that will not give up our language or our identity,” he said.
Other speakers, including former president Fernand Kartheiser said that Luxembourg should cease striving for uncontrollable growth as the party tries to position itself as an alternative party for the environment. Kartheiser finished his address with a rousing claim that the party would win the next elections – the country goes to the polls in June 2023 to vote in communal elections and in October 2023 to vote for a new national parliament.
No vote activist
Keup’s rise to the top of the party has been swift. He has only been an MP for less than 18 months. In October 2020 he replaced veteran ADR MP Gast Gibéryen, one of the most colourful figures in parliament, who stepped down from active politics after 31 years as an MP.
He first made his name as one of the leading activists behind the “Nee2015” movement that lobbied for a “no” vote in the 2015 referendum on allowing non-Luxembourgers to vote in national parliamentary elections. The referendum was defeated, but the government took steps to make becoming a Luxembourg citizen that bit easier.
More recently, Keup has also argued against the government’s plans to abolish a five-year residency requirement for non-Luxembourgers to vote in local council elections. Keup said in a head-to-head interview with Asti’s Sérgio Ferreira that foreigners could “easily be manipulated” if they don’t have time to integrate and learn about Luxembourg’s political system.
But his popularity within the party has also been built on promoting nationalist fears about the loss of the Luxembourg language and identity. He has consistently argued that Luxembourgish is disappearing, when evidence suggests that more and more people are actually learning the language, to take advantage of the new nationality laws. He has been supported in this by another figure elected to the ADR national committee on Sunday, Tom Weidig, who was picked as one of four vice-presidents at Sunday’s congress.