analysis
The AfD wants to stick to its European election candidates despite the suspicion of false statements. The consequences remain manageable – despite discontent at the grassroots level. This is also due to the power of co-boss Weidel.
The woman who is in the middle of the internal dispute over the AfD’s European election list was not there when her co-party leader Tino Chrupalla appeared before the press in the Bundestag on Tuesday. Alice Weidel meets the FPÖ leadership in Austria; that is more important to her than answering journalists’ questions in this delicate situation for the AfD.
The rumors that two candidates had provided untrue CV information when applying for a place in the European Parliament were already circulating days before the nomination meeting in August. But Arno Bausemer and Mary Khan-Hohloch are still elected to the promising places 10 and 14 on the list.
“Don’t rely on lies”
Contrary to their statements, the two did not have any professional or university qualifications at the time. When a delegate wants to problematize this during the current meeting and demands that the election for number 14 on the list be repeated (“I don’t want to build our house on lies”), Alice Weidel steps up to the lectern. With a trembling voice she shouts: “Angela Merkel is undoing elections, we as the AfD won’t do that.”
The hall erupts into loud cheers and the debate is stalled. Such power words speak: In the AfD, she is the only one who can still do that. Bring an AfD candidacy for chancellor into play without prior consultation and immediately express interest: Weidel is allowed to formulate his own leadership claims, for which others in the party would be publicly condemned. She is even allowed to join her co-leader, Chrupalla ARD summer interview publicly duped for his visit to the Russian embassy. This has no consequences.
Only Weidel can do that
Only Weidel can do all of this in the AfD. Even their internal opponents can already see that the party will only have to decide between two options next year: either for Weidel as candidate for chancellor or for no such candidate at all.
“If it wasn’t Weidel, it would have been a bust long ago,” says an AfD member of the Bundestag about the discussion about the cheating candidates. For weeks there have been calls for consequences in internal party chat groups – at least for Bausemer and Khan-Hochloch. The fact that the CVs were actually subsequently checked again in a less severe form was a consequence of this persistent pressure from the AfD base.
Nothing should get outside
At the federal executive board meeting on Monday evening, at which the results were presented, the participants first had to hand in all cell phones. If possible, nothing should leak outside. The situation seems serious. Weidel is already in Austria and does not even take part in the important meeting, the outcome of which was eagerly awaited in the party.
The AfD leadership team sits together until late in the evening, when it is clear: “The already known suspected facts surrounding the candidates Bausemer and Khan-Hohloch have been confirmed. At the time of the application speeches, there were no professional or study-qualifying degrees.” This is what it says in an official statement the next afternoon.
There is great displeasure
After all, Mary Khan-Hohloch has now provided proof of her completed studies. However, the dissatisfaction in the party is already so great that even this conclusion, which was apparently submitted later, is being questioned. AfD boss Chrupalla brushed off questions about this in the short press conference. He is not to be envied for having to deliver the unpleasant news alone.
The fact that trust, credibility and transparency are now crucial for the party leadership, as it says in the statement, also causes a smile in AfD circles, and some even cause disbelief. Also this sentence at the press conference: “We checked all 35 candidates and the positive thing has to be said that almost all of them gave this information correctly at the selection meeting,” said Chrupalla. “Embarrassing,” writes one person in an AfD chat group. “Almost everyone didn’t lie,” another says, adding a laughing smiley after it.
Kühnert’s qualifications
It was members of the AfD who always went out of their way when it came to dirty CVs in other parties or politicians without a degree. Just last week, deputy AfD chairman Stephan Brandner alluded to this in the Bundestag plenary session: What qualifies SPD General Secretary Kevin Kühnert to speak in the Bundestag on the subject of the heating law: “We at the AfD have no problem at all with professionally successful personalities to look up to,” said Brandner, because Kühnert has not yet completed any studies.
Now the AfD itself sees no problem in submitting the list for the EU elections despite cheating. According to constitutional lawyers, the alternative would have been to carry out the entire list election again, which would have cost the party around one million euros. Too expensive, most people dismiss it. There would also be a risk of lawsuits if candidates who had already been elected no longer made it onto the list at a new meeting. The consequences for the two problem candidates have so far only been announced and what they are is still unclear.
First letters of protest
Even if the first letters of protest to be signed are already making the rounds at the grassroots level, in the end all the trouble will probably have no consequences for Weidel. The lack of personnel alternatives in the self-proclaimed alternative makes them powerful.
A maximum of three more weeks and then the protest will die down anyway, says someone who himself has a promising place on the list. And he adds that anyone who jeopardizes the party’s currently good poll numbers by acting after the Federal Executive Board’s decision will be clearly identified as a polluter.