AfD, the Alternative for Dictators


BY JAKOB HANKE VELA

APRIL 24, 2024


FAR-RIGHT SPYING SCANDAL


NI HAO KRAH: MEP Maximilian Krah, the AfD’s top candidate for the June European Parliament election, is under massive pressure from his party leadership to end his campaign today. It comes after the bombshell arrest of his aide, who stands accused of spying for China’s totalitarian security apparatus.

ICYMI: German police on Tuesday arrested Krah’s long-time collaborator and parliamentary assistant, Jian Guo.“Jian G. is an employee of a Chinese secret service,” the German public prosecutor alleged in a statement.

Implications: Germany’s far-right AfD — which was expected to make big gains in the EU election — already stood accused of being backed by agents of the Russian and Chinese dictatorships seeking to undermine Western democracies. It will be much harder for the party to dismiss that criticism now.

AfD, the Alternative for Dictators: The AfD’s two top candidates for the EU election, Krah and Petr Bystron, are both at the center of investigations over foreign interference. The FBI has questioned Krah over alleged payments from sources close to the Kremlin. Bystron, the No. 2 on the AfD’s list for the EU election, stands accused of having received €20,000 from people with links to Russian leader Vladimir Putin. While he denies the accusations, Spiegel on Tuesday reported on a recording in which Bystron talks about the cash.

PRESSURE MOUNTING: Last night, Krah was summoned to Berlin. Journalists spotted the MEP having dinner at Brasserie Le Paris on Kurfürstendamm — but AfD leaders Alice Weidel and Tino Chrupalla didn’t want to be seen at a table with him. Instead, as Chrupalla entertained a delegation in the next room, Krah dined with the party leaders’ aides, who, BILD reports, attempted to convince him that his position is untenable.

Crunch meeting this morning: Krah has been called to Chrupalla’s office in the Bundestag at 9 a.m., my Berlin Playbook colleagues report.

Campaign’s over — but Krah to remain AfD’s No. 1: The AfD leadership now has a massive problem. It’s not just that posters with Krah’s face on them are already on the streets. The party can no longer boot Krah or Bystron from running in the EU election, since the electoral list has already been submitted and signed off on. Changes are only allowed for extreme cases — such as death.

Now read this: A far-right takeover is the biggest threat to the future of Europe, according to a POLITICO survey of EU lawmakers. Check out what keeps MEPs up at night here, by Giovanna Coi.

MEANWHILE, IN PARLIAMENT    

MEPS TO CONDEMN AfD OVER RUSSIA, CHINA SCANDALS: In Strasbourg, MEPs are drafting a resolution condemning the AfD and warning that Russia and China have penetrated deep into its ranks.

The opposite of patriots: “The AfD is once again showing its true, unpatriotic face. Anyone who votes AfD in the European elections is voting for more influence from Russia and China,” said MEP Daniel Caspary, from the EPP.

Own up: The Parliament “calls upon the AfD to publicly declare their financial relations especially with the Kremlin without delay and to publicly disclose the purpose and exact amount of all payments originating from Kremlin-linked sources,” reads the draft resolution, seen by my colleague Eddy Wax.

The problem: The resolution is non-legislative and will hardly do anything to help shine light on any illicit financial ties.

Darkness of their own making: Parliament, in large part led by the EPP, has opposed post-Qatargate initiatives for stricter legislation that would have forced MEPs to reveal their finances to an oversight body. The current rules allow MEPs to have extra incomes with no oversight. But why wouldn’t MEPs want more transparency on their side jobs and extra earnings? Read on …

PARLIAMENT QUIETLY REJECTS CALLS TO INVESTIGATE FERBER: The European Parliament has quietly rejected calls to investigate German conservative MEP Markus Ferber following my colleague Bjarke Smith-Meyer’s revelations about his relationship with Dutch businessman Michael Heijmeijer.

MEPs covering for MEPs: Parliament’s group leaders decided not to investigate Ferber — despite huge question marks around his activities and whether he took money from banks to advise them on an EU law he helped write.

So much for transparency: The decision was taken during Parliament’s Conference of Presidents last week — the closed-door meeting of political group chairs and Parliament President Roberta Metsola. The Parliament doesn’t comment on COP discussions and there’s no written record of the decision. However, two people who attended the meeting told POLITICO that the Parliament’s lawyers said an investigation into Ferber wasn’t necessary.

EPP THROWS SHADE AT GREENS OVER HARASSMENT: Meanwhile, the center-right group has put up an amendment to a report on harassment in the workplace — calling out the Greens for “double standards.” The amendment makes reference to the alleged harassment case of “former Green MEP, Malte Gallée” arguing “his group failed to report this case to the relevant internal EP committees and structures.”


Chinese spying claims deepen German far right’s woes


By AFP
April 24, 2024

AfD leaders Alice Weidel and Tino Chrupalla face damaging allegations about an EU parliamentarian's aide accused of spying for China - Copyright AFP Odd ANDERSEN
Femke COLBORNE

Germany’s far-right AfD fought Wednesday to draw a line under Chinese spying allegations, the latest in a slew of scandals to hit the anti-immigration party in a key election year.

An aide to Maximilian Krah, a member of the European Parliament for the AfD and the party’s top candidate for June’s EU elections, was arrested on Monday on suspicion of spying for China.

The AfD’s leaders Alice Weidel and Tino Chrupalla summoned Krah to an emergency meeting in Berlin on Wednesday morning.

The controversial politician will not attend a key event this weekend to officially launch the party’s EU vote race “so as not to damage the election campaign and the standing of the party”, they said after the talks.

But Krah himself said he would “remain the leading candidate” in the vote.

German media reported that the party will remove Krah from campaign posters and videos, while keeping him on its list of candidates.

An AfD spokesman declined to comment on the reports when contacted by AFP.

Chancellor Olaf Scholz called the allegations “very worrying”, without commenting on the case in detail.

After riding high in opinion polls at the end of last year, the AfD has since seen its support hammered by a series of scandals.

– ‘Descending into chaos’ –

The spying claims come on top of other recent allegations that Krah has links to Russia, piling pressure on the party seven weeks before the EU elections and ahead of key regional polls in Germany in September.

Towards the end of 2023, the AfD was polling at around 22 percent — ahead of Scholz’s Social Democrats (SPD) and second only to the main opposition conservatives.

But one survey this week put it on 16 percent.

In January, an investigation by media group Correctiv indicated members of the AfD had discussed the idea of mass deportations at a meeting with extremists, leading to a wave of protests across the country.

More recently, Krah and another AfD candidate for the EU elections, Petr Bystron, have been forced to deny allegations they accepted money to spread pro-Russian positions on a Moscow-financed news website.

And Bjoern Hoecke, one of the AfD’s most controversial politicians and the head of the party in Thuringia state, is currently on trial in Germany for publicly using a banned Nazi slogan.

Dirk Wiese, a senior politician for the SPD, told the Rheinische Post newspaper the AfD was “descending into chaos”.

“First the allegations of sleazy money payments from the Kremlin, now suspected espionage for China… What’s next, North Korea?” he said.

The AfD’s parliamentary group chief Bernd Baumann slammed the China spying claims as “politically motivated” and put them down to “dirty” electioneering.

“We have become pretty hardened when it comes to accusations, especially in pre-election and election campaign times,” he said, blaming “suspicious reporting” for many of the claims.

– End of an era? –

Asked about the alleged links to Russia, AfD co-leader Chrupalla said that “as long as no evidence and proof is put on the table, we cannot react”.

Chrupalla also remained reticent on the China issue, stressing that no charges had been brought and the party leadership would “wait and see” how the case develops before coming to any conclusions.

But despite the attempts at damage limitation, experts say the scandals could have a profound effect on the AfD’s chances in this year’s elections.

“The party is not managing to go on the offensive at the moment,” said Wolfgang Schroeder, a political analyst from the University of Kassel.

“The AfD is allowing itself to be cornered rather than setting the issues itself,” he said.

The AfD is currently still polling neck-and-neck with the SPD at the national level and in first place in Brandenburg, Saxony and Thuringia, all holding regional polls in September.

But Hajo Funke, a political analyst who specialises in the far right, said support for the party has “fallen considerably in some cases” because of the scandals.

“Overall, I believe that the great era of ‘we are doing better and better’ has come to an end,” he told AFP.


Germany: AfD's Krah faces probe on Russia, China 'payments'

Prosecutors are looking at whether German far-right MEP Maximilian Krah received payments from Russian and Chinese sources. This comes just a day after Krah's aide was arrested on suspicion of spying for China.

German public prosecutors have launched two preliminary investigations into the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD)'s top European parliamentary candidate after media reports suggested that he had received payments from foreign powers.

A spokesperson for the state prosecutor in the eastern German city of Dresden confirmed to the AFP news agency on Wednesday that initial probes have been opened against lawmaker Maximilian Krah over "alleged payments" from Russian and Chinese sources.
What payments is Krah alleged to have received?

The purpose of the preliminary proceedings, according to the spokesperson, is to establish "whether or not an initial suspicion of illegal parliamentary bribery" exists.

Krah himself told the regional public broadcaster MDR, which first reported the probe, that he was unaware of the steps being taken and denied any wrongdoing.

The public prosecutor said the probe has been launched "as a result of current public reporting," referring to reports by Spiegel magazine and public broadcaster ZDF last week that Krah had been questioned by the FBI in December 2023 over possible payments from sources close to the Kremlin.

During the interrogation, the US investigators had reportedly confronted Krah with chat messages in which the sanctioned pro-Russian former Ukrainian politician and activist Oleg Voloshyn assured him that the problem with "compensation" for Krah's "technical expenses" had been solved and that, from May, "it would be as it was before February."

The words used suggested that such payment arrangements had been long established, suggestions thqat Krah rejected.

According to the public prosecutor, the second initial probe is investigating "alleged Chinese payments for his role as parliamentarian."

Should the prosecutors in Dresden establish a suspicion of wrongdoing, the preliminary investigations could give way to a formal one. For that to happen, however, Krah's parliamentary immunity would have to be lifted.

Maximilian Krah's pro-Russia connections

Krah's name has cropped up regularly in recent weeks in connection with the pro-Russia online portal Voice of Europe, which was sanctioned by the Czech government at the end of March after Prague said it was a Kremlin-led propaganda tool.

The main figure behind the portal is said to be Viktor Medvedchuk, another pro-Russia former Ukrainian lawmaker and personal friend of Russian President Vladimir Putin's, as well as Voloshyn.

Medvedchuk, who attempted to flee Ukraine in the days following Russia's full-scale invasion of the country in February 2022, was arrested by the Ukrainian security service in April and exchanged along with 55 other Russian prisoners of war for 215 Ukrainian soldiers captured following the fall of Mariupol.

Krah has had contact with Medvedchuk and Voloshyn for years, according to the reports.

The fresh investigations in Dresden come just one day after one of Krah's aides was charged by the German government with committing espionage for Chinese intelligence agencies.

Krah said he would immediately sack the aide and insisted that he would still lead the AfD ticket in June's European elections.

The prosecutors in Dresden stated that their probe "is not connected" to the Chinese spying case.