Not many are aware that Alice Weidel, the chancellor candidate of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD), is the proud public face for a male-dominated, anti-immigration party that wants to protect traditional family values and ordinary working people.
The 45-year-old is raising two sons with a Sri Lankan-born woman. She is a filmmaker, speaks fluent Mandarin and has a doctorate degree in economics in China. The west German is leading a party that is strongest in the former communist East, she worked for Goldman Sachs and Allianz Global Investors and as a freelance business consultant before entering politics.
Weidel's unusual profile is precisely what makes her an asset to the AfD, surmised one political analysts. She lends a veneer of well-heeled liberal respectability to a party that is suspected by authorities of being antidemocratic.
Typically sporting a dark suit, white shirt and pearls, she comes across as more poised and competent on various topics than some of her colleagues, they say. Her critics call her a ruthless opportunist and a "wolf in sheep's clothing".
"Weidel is someone who can appeal to a broader public than the typical AfD constituency, to the middle class bourgeoisie," said Oliver Lembcke, political scientist at the University of Bochum. "She seems like the adult in the room among all these lunatics and extremists."
As AfD co-leader, Weidel has overseen a surge in support for the party in recent years, benefiting from frustration with Chancellor Olaf Scholz's fractious coalition whose collapse is set to result in a 23 February snap election.
The party is polling in second place on around 17 percent, after the conservatives on 33 percent but well ahead of Chancellor Olaf Scholz's Social Democrats on 15 percent, the Greens on 14 percent and the pro-market Free Democrats (FDP) on 4 percent.
This is the first time the AfD has nominated a chancellor candidate and Weidel has already acknowledged it is unlikely to enter government for now, given other parties refuse to work with it.
Weidel expects this firewall to crumble by the 2029 election as voters clearly want a right-wing coalition, she told German outlet Compact.
"Voters clearly want a coalition of conservatives and the AfD," she told reporters in Berlin recently, warning the former of ignoring the voice of millions of voters.