German far right tries to brush off spy scandals

The far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) has stuck by its lead candidate for upcoming European parliament elections even as growing espionage scandals involving Russia and China erase months of gains in the polls for the party.

Maximilian Krah tops the AfD list for the June 9 elections and is currently a member of the EU parliament. He was summoned to meet with AfD leaders Alice Weidel and Tino Chrupalla to explain himself after one of his staffers was arrested on Tuesday on charges of spying for China.

In a carefully worded statement on Wednesday, the AfD leadership said Krah had agreed not to take part in an upcoming kick-off event “in order not to put a strain on the election campaign”, but stopped short of announcing any further measures against him.

Krah denied the allegations.

“If you believe that this is the end of my top candidacy, then I will have to disappoint you,” he told journalists on Wednesday. “I am, and remain, the top candidate.”

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This is the second scandal engulfing the party’s EU election candidates, another AfD lead candidate, Petr Bystron, was questioned by authorities about his links to a Kremlin-linked oligarch running a Russian influence operation in Europe.

Bystron has denied the accusations and the AfD’s leadership have, so far, stood by him as well.

Krah’s name has also been linked to the Russia scandal, but he has sought to distance himself from his colleague and denied wrongdoing.

The two scandals have drawn widespread criticism of the AfD from across the political spectrum and thrown an uncomfortable spotlight on to the controversial foreign policy views of many of its candidates.

Krah and Bystron — along with many others in the party — have made no secret of their pro-Russian and pro-China views.

Until recently, potential AfD voters seemed not to care, as long as the party promoted a hardline stance on immigration, the economy and willingness to challenge the political status quo.

But polls indicate that is changing. A RTL-NTV survey on Wednesday morning put the AfD on 16 per cent nationwide, down from a high of 23 per cent in December.

“The suspicions levelled against AfD employees and candidates are very, very, worrying,” German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said on Wednesday. He pledged to bring to justice those who spied against Germany or worked with foreign powers to undermine its political system.

“It is becoming increasingly clear: whether Russia, China or North Korea — the representatives of the AfD, who like to call themselves patriots, are obviously closer to the dictatorships of this world than the democracies in Germany and Europe,” Konstantin von Notz, the chair of the German parliament’s intelligence and security control committee told the Financial Times.

“AfD politicians can always be found where the despots of this world are looking for compliant helpers to betray German interests and harm our democracy. The accusations are very serious.”