Far-right funding scandal

A donation of €132,000, meted out in “discreet” payments of €9,000 each, received during the 2017 election campaign; Another donation, sent from the Netherlands, of €150,000: these are the financial stones being thrown at Alice Weidel, the leader of the parliamentary group of the extreme right party, Alternative for Germany (AfD), in the German Parliament. This is a classic funding scandal, and is nothing new for Germany. “we made mistakes,” Weidel admitted, Wednesday, during a debate on the State’s general budgets. There have been “involuntary errors”, the AfD leader claimed. She went on to assert that the donations in question were returned when the anomalies were detected. The discussion was unusual, given the topic of the day suggested MPs were to be discussing financial issues of national interest, not their “own affairs”. To this point, Angela Merkel played up ironically, responding to Weidel’s intervention by saying that “it is up to everyone to recognise when their own affairs become relevant to the country.” The Bundestag’s Financial Commission has recommended the waiving of parliamentary immunity in the case, which could be problematic for Weidel, in addition to her other headaches. Her party is the formal opposition, but they have seen large losses at the polls recently, having attained only 12.6% of votes at last year’s general elections, and only 20% in subsequent regional elections. The Greens, a more constructive opponent to Merkel’s CDU coalition, are an emerging force, predicted by some polls to take 23% of votes at the general elections, putting AfD’s position at risk.