“You duck away”
AfD politicians accuse party leadership of failure in the Krah case
April 25, 2024, 11:15 a.m
The AfD party leaders Weidel and Chrupalla are still sticking to their controversial European leader Krah. Now more and more AfD politicians are criticizing their party leadership for this. There were warnings, but they were ignored.
Several AfD politicians see the party leadership as sharing responsibility for the debate about the European election top candidate Maximilian Krah. She would have expected a decision from a party leadership and not “a little mouse” after a long wait, said outgoing AfD MEP Sylvia Limmer on Deutschlandfunk. “You duck away and don’t take political responsibility. And that’s disturbing because the allegations or the inconsistencies surrounding Maximilian Krah were fully known to the federal executive board,” she added.
Already on Wednesday evening, AfD MEP Nicolaus Fest said that he saw party leaders Alice Weidel and Tino Chrupalla as having the main responsibility. “You have been advised several times that this is, I would say, a dud that can go off at any time,” he said in the RTL “Nachtjournal”. However, the two party leaders ignored all warnings.
Krah doesn’t blame himself
Krah has been criticized for days, among other things because he is suspected of receiving money from Russia and one of his employees was arrested on suspicion of spying for China. The Dresden Public Prosecutor’s Office has started two preliminary investigations. Krah himself rejects all allegations and emphasized on Wednesday after a conversation with Weidel and Chrupalla that he would remain the AfD’s top candidate in the European elections. He personally did not commit any wrongdoing, said Krah.
Limmer criticized this and made further accusations against Krah. “I mean, for some people this is a mandate and the AfD is an economic business model,” she said, specifically referring to the AfD politician. At the request of the traffic light coalition, the Bundestag wants to address the allegations of influence from Russia and China on the AfD in a debate this afternoon.
Wadephul: AfD represents the interests of authoritarian states
Union parliamentary group vice-president Johann Wadephul also criticizes the AfD’s adherence to Krah. “It shows the leadership weakness of the AfD leadership. Ms. Weidel and Mr. Chrupalla no longer have the situation under control,” said Wadephul on the ntv program ” Frühstart “. It is clear, said Wadepful, that they are distancing themselves from their top candidate and “We are clearly against him continuing.”
AfD politician Petr Bystron, also a European election candidate, is also suspected of having accepted money from Russia. “This needs to be clarified,” demanded Wadephul. Krah and Bystron are numbers one and two on the AfD European list and both are said to have close contacts with pro-Russian networks. However, your party is advertising its European election campaign with “Our country first”. CDU politician Wadephul sees this as a contradiction. “This is a party that always claims to represent German interests. The opposite is happening here, the interests of other states, especially China, are being taken care of.”