Misrepresentations on the CV
AfD sticks with questionable European candidates
September 19, 2023, 1:25 a.m
Two AfD candidates for the European elections were unable to provide information about their educational background when asked. The party is still sticking with them, not because it trusts them, but because a new nomination would be too difficult.
Despite the ongoing suspicion of biographical false information, the AfD wants to stick to its candidate for next year’s European elections. The AfD federal executive board made a corresponding decision in the evening after deliberations lasting several hours in Berlin, according to party circles. Two of the candidates recently nominated at the party conference in Magdeburg were unable to provide documents to support their professional and academic qualifications, it said. But this will have no consequences.
According to information from the AfD board, these are the candidate Mary Khan-Hohloch, who is in 14th place on the list of candidates for the European elections, and the candidate Arno Bausemer, who is in tenth place. After media reports about doubts about the candidates’ information about their CVs, the AfD federal executive committee set a deadline for all 35 nominated European candidates to submit verifiable evidence of their information on professional training and degrees by September 11th.
No proof of degree or traineeship
In the documents she submitted, Khan-Hohloch was unable to substantiate her claim that she had completed a degree in religious studies and public law, board circles said. Khan-Hohloch was able to present certificates of individual university courses completed – but no certificate that would have documented completed studies.
The candidate Bausemer was unable to provide any evidence to support his claim that he had completed vocational training and a traineeship, the board said. He was also unable to provide proof of a degree. When applying for a place on the European candidate list, Bausemer stated, among other things, that he had completed a traineeship at MDR and that he had been managing director of a medium-sized company. According to information from board circles, he was unable to prove this with documents.
In a meeting that lasted more than four hours in the evening, the AfD federal executive board decided to stick with the candidate despite the suspicion of false statements that had not been dispelled. Otherwise, the entire list of candidates for next year’s European elections would have had to be repeated. It was said that the board wanted to avoid this complex process, which would have required a new nomination party conference.