page_title: Liberal Conservative Reformers
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Liberal Conservative Reformers / History
caption_attribution_description: a.o. Bundesparteitag der Alternative für Deutschland, 4. Juli 2015 in Essen, Gruga Halle a.o. Bundesparteitag der Alternative für Deutschland am 4./5. Juli 2015 in Essen, Gruga Halle
context_page_description: The Liberal Conservative Reformers is a centre-right political party in Germany which was known from July 2015 to November 2016 as ALFA.
  The party was established in July 2015 as a split from the Alternative for Germany led by former AfD spokesman Bernd Lucke. It was founded as the Alliance for Progress and Renewal, but changed its name in November 2016 after litigation with the pro-life movement "Aktion Lebensrecht für Alle" which uses the same abbreviation.
  The party was initially represented by five MEPs in the European Parliament and three members of the Bürgerschaft of Bremen due to their formal withdrawal from the AfD. In September 2018, all its MEPs but Lucke left the party. In the 2019 European Elections and the Bremen state election on the same day, LKR lost all its remaining seats in the European Parliament and Bremen.
context_section_description: The party founding was preceded by months of power struggle between Bernd Lucke and Frauke Petry for AfD party leadership, the latter being leader of the party's national-conservative wing. In the course of the dispute Lucke and leading AfD members with liberal-conservative and economic liberal orientations founded the association Weckruf 2015 (wake-up call 2015) out of concern for a perceived right-wing populist tendency in the AfD.
  At an extraordinary party convention in Essen on 4 July 2015, Lucke was defeated in the election for chairman by his opponent Petry, who received 60% of the vote. The following week, 5 AfD MEPs exited the party on 7 July 2015, and Lucke announced his resignation from the party on 8 July, leading to the formation of the ALFA party.
  ALFA was formally founded on 19 July 2015 at a closed inaugural meeting of 70 people in Kassel, Hesse where statutes and a party platform were approved and Bernd Lucke MEP was elected chairman. Also selected as its foundation were its deputy chairmen was Bernd Kölmel MEP, Gunther Nickel and Reiner Rohlje, and the general secretary Ulrike Trebesius MEP.
  It has been estimated that 20% percent of the then AfD membership moved to ALFA with Lucke.
  On 18 March 2016, ALFA was admitted into the Alliance of European Conservatives and Reformists.
  The party met on 4 June 2016 for its second convention, at which Ulrike Trebesius, member of the European Parliament, was elected party chairwoman. On her side her fellow MEP Bernd Kölmel, Ulrich van Suntum, professor of economics at Münster University and chairman of the party at state level in Northrhine-Westphalia, and Christian Schäfer, chair of the ALFA caucus in the state parliament of Bremen, were elected vice chairmen. Bernd Lucke was instead elected almost unanimously the party's number one candidate for the next general election in Germany, that will be held in 2017. Later that year Trebesius resigned from office. Thus Christian Kott from Bremen was elected chairman on 12 November 2016, in Frankfurt. On the same convention party delegates also changed the party's name to Liberal-Conservative Reformers. Since then the party name is often abbreviated LKR.
  On 17 September 2017, a new party executive committee was elected, with Bernd Kölmel as party chairman. Other members of the executive committee include Bernd Lucke, Ulrike Trebesius and Hans-Olaf Henkel.
  In September 2018, Joachim Starbatty was the first member to leave the party.
caption: Bernd Lucke and Frauke Petry at the 2015 AfD convention in Essen.
exif: {"Image ImageDescription": "b'a.o. Bundesparteitag, ... ]", "Image Make": "Olaf Kosinsky", "Image Model": "NIKON D300S", "Image Orientation": "Mirrored horizontal", "Image XResolution": "300", "Image YResolution": "300", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 5.0 (Windows)", "Image DateTime": "2015:07:05 17:27:46", "Image Artist": "Olaf Kosinsky", "Image Copyright": "Olaf Kosinsky", "Image ExifOffset": "510", "Image XPTitle": "[66, 0, 117, 0, 110, 0, 100, 0, 101, 0, 115, 0, 112, 0, 97, 0, 114, 0, 116, 0, ... ]", "Image XPAuthor": "Olaf Kosinsky", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "1202", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "9239", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/400", "EXIF FNumber": "7/2", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Aperture Priority", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "1250", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0230", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2015:07:04 10:47:51", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2015:07:04 10:47:51", "EXIF ShutterSpeedValue": "540241/62500", "EXIF ApertureValue": "361471/100000", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "3", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Pattern", "EXIF LightSource": "Unknown", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire", "EXIF FocalLength": "45", "EXIF SubSecTimeOriginal": "08", "EXIF SubSecTimeDigitized": "08", "EXIF SensingMethod": "One-chip color area", "EXIF FileSource": "Digital Camera", "EXIF SceneType": "Directly Photographed", "EXIF CVAPattern": "[2, 0, 2, 0, 0, 1, 1, 2]", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF DigitalZoomRatio": "1", "EXIF FocalLengthIn35mmFilm": "67", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard", "EXIF GainControl": "High gain up", "EXIF Contrast": "Normal", "EXIF Saturation": "Normal", "EXIF Sharpness": "Normal", "EXIF SubjectDistanceRange": "0", "EXIF BodySerialNumber": "6090043", "EXIF LensSpecification": "[24, 70, 14/5, 14/5]", "EXIF LensModel": "24.0-70.0 mm f/2.8"}