Party - Halemba resigns from party offices: suspends membership rights
The Bavarian AfD member of the state parliament Daniel Halemba, who is facing expulsion proceedings for violating party regulations, has resigned from all party offices with immediate effect. He is also suspending his membership rights in the party, Halemba announced in a written statement on Thursday evening. However, he will retain his seat in the state parliament, Halemba clarified at the request of Deutsche Presse-Agentur.
"In order to prevent damage to the AfD, I am resigning from all party offices with immediate effect and will also refrain from exercising my membership rights within the AfD until further notice," the statement read. "I will face up to all allegations as part of a party disciplinary procedure and cooperate in the investigation. I am confident that all open questions will soon be clarified." The party offices he is resigning are the AfD district chairmanship in Würzburg and an office on the AfD district executive in Lower Franconia.
Also on Thursday evening, the AfD state executive decided to consider expulsion proceedings against Halemba. The state executive board unanimously decided that legal advisor Ferdinand Mang should commission a lawyer to "examine and, if necessary, prepare" the party expulsion proceedings against Halemba commissioned by the federal executive board, state chairman Stephan Protschka told the German Press Agency in Munich in the evening.
The state executive committee is thus not immediately complying with a corresponding demand by the AfD federal executive committee to initiate proceedings, but is having this examined. The federal executive board's demand was based on Halemba's violations of AfD regulations, which had led to the admission of members in breach of the party's statutes in the run-up to two state election rallies in Bavaria.
The AfD federal executive committee had also demanded that the state association should also apply to the competent state arbitration court for Halemba's immediate exclusion from exercising his membership rights. The request had been made "to initiate expulsion proceedings against Mr. Halemba and to immediately revoke his membership rights", explained party and parliamentary group leader Alice Weidel in Berlin. However, there was no mention of such a step in Protschka's statement.
The public prosecutor's office in Würzburg is also investigating the 22-year-old for incitement of the people and the use of symbols of anti-constitutional organizations. An arrest warrant applied for against him had been suspended subject to conditions. Halemba himself rejects the accusations of the public prosecutor's office. He has not yet commented specifically on the internal accusations.
Last week, it also became known that the Bavarian Office for the Protection of the Constitution has been monitoring the Teutonia Prag fraternity in Würzburg, of which Halemba is a member, since the beginning of December. This also applies to the AfD as a party as a whole in Bavaria.
According to the public prosecutor's office in Würzburg, a guest book was confiscated from the fraternity's house during a raid in September. It contained the entry "Sieg Heil", signed with Halemba's name. In the room occupied by the 22-year-old, a printout of an SS order issued by SS chief Heinrich Himmler in October 1939 with a so-called double sigrune was discovered.
CSU parliamentary group leader Klaus Holetschek is not satisfied with Halemba's consequences. "If he returns his party offices, he has forgotten something crucial: his mandate in the state parliament. Given the seriousness of the allegations, he must resign immediately," said Holetschek on Thursday evening. AfD parliamentary group leader Katrin Ebner-Steiner must "take a clear position here and must no longer remain silent".
Should Halemba have to leave the party and parliamentary group now or later, this would have an impact on the balance of power within the opposition in the state parliament. The AfD and the Greens currently have the same number of MPs. However, because the AfD finished ahead of the Greens in terms of the percentage result in the state election, the AfD, as the strongest opposition party in percentage terms, is entitled to a number of special rights, such as the right of first reply to government statements. If the AfD were to shrink, the Greens would be the largest opposition group.
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Source: www.stern.de
