As the German AfD’s European election campaign kicks off tomorrow, the far-right party’s leadership could be forgiven for counting down to polling day in June with dread. This campaign launch marks the end of a torrid fortnight for the party that is threatening to jeopardise the AfD’s future in Brussels.
Two of the party’s top politicians have been embroiled in foreign influence scandals that have plunged the party into crisis. On 19 April, Der Spiegel reported that Petr Bystron, the AfD’s second-choice party list candidate at the European elections, was caught in a sting operation receiving ‘small packages’ of money from a Russian businessman who managed a now-sanctioned Kremlin-backed propaganda site, Voice of Europe, in Prague.
The AfD is now 11 years old and is no longer the upstart, reactionary movement it was at its inception
The video was said to prove allegations made in March that Bystron had received money from the website, reportedly in order to fund the hiring of new staff at the European parliament.
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