The AfD took two weekends to draw up its list of candidates for the European elections. Now, possible incorrect information in the CVs of two applicants is getting the party into trouble – it may even have to choose its entire list again.
At its election meeting in Magdeburg, the AfD asked all applicants for the European Parliament whether they had completed vocational training or a degree. Arno Bausemer, tenth on the list, answered the question with “yes”. However, research by the T-Online portal suggests that this and other information in Bausemer’s CV is at least prettied up.
Mary Khan-Hohloch, number 14 on the list, states on the AfD website that she has “successfully studied religious studies and public law (Bachelor of Arts)”. According to T-Online, AfD members also have doubts about this. The same applies to Khan-Hohloch’s statement that she has four years of professional experience.
An elected list of candidates cannot simply be untied
The party leadership now wants to investigate these allegations. All 35 candidates are to submit documents to the federal manager of the party and two persons of trust by September 11th about the information they have given about their professional or academic qualifications. The result of the test is to be presented to the federal executive board on September 18th. However, it has not yet been clarified how the AfD will deal with it if it turns out that the information provided by the applicants does not stand up to the test – and if doubts also arise with other candidates.
Taking people off the list afterwards is not possible, says legal scholar Sophie Schönberger. “If you simply delete candidates, the federal returning officer can’t accept the list,” says Schönberger. In her opinion, individual seats cannot be re-elected either, after all everything is connected in a list election. Voting for first place affects voting for second place, and so on. “It’s a uniform process that needs uniform legitimation,” says Schönberger. You can repeat it, but you can’t untie it again.
The AfD was faced with a similar case years ago: before the 2014 state elections in Saxony, Arvid Immo Samtleben was ranked 14th on the list until party officials removed him from the list. On the other hand, Samtleben appealed. The Saxon Constitutional Court reprimanded the deletion in 2018 as an electoral error: The persons of trust should not have changed the list past the party conference and the election committee should only have approved the original list, said the presiding judge at the time. However, the state election remained valid.
It should therefore be difficult for the AfD to get the suspected imposters off the list without completely re-electing them. This in turn would involve enormous effort and high costs. “Any withdrawal of individual candidates” had “not been discussed at all,” said the AfD on request.