What the AfD in Saxony-Anhalt is accusing Jan Wenzel Schmidt of | EUROtoday

Matthias Lieschke was curt on Tuesday morning after his expulsion: “I’m not saying anything about it, bye,” says the 55-year-old AfD politician on the telephone. During a bunch assembly the day earlier than, all members current voted for his exclusion. Only Lieschke himself spoke out towards it. He was accused of a doable crime on the assembly: he’s stated to have secretly recorded a video convention of the district leaders.

The affair hits the AfD on the unsuitable time. The social gathering really needs to return to energy in Saxony-Anhalt in 2026 and appoint a major minister for the primary time after the state elections on September sixth. The prospects for this are higher than ever: surveys not too long ago noticed the social gathering with its 35-year-old high candidate Ulrich Siegmund at round 40 p.c, properly forward of the CDU. The AfD is even hoping for an absolute majority of seats if the FDP and the Greens miss their return to the state parliament.

However, the affair surrounding the alleged recording is way from over. Lieschke is accused of getting forwarded the file to AfD member of the Bundestag Jan Wenzel Schmidt, who has been on the middle of mudslinging inside the social gathering for a very long time.

The state government committee determined to expel Schmidt and Lieschke from the social gathering in December. Directly after the assembly there was a 154-page justification for this, experiences Schmidt on the telephone. Documents from his parliamentary workplace and from one among his corporations have been even used for this goal and have been illegally handed on. “This is a planned spectacle,” complains Schmidt in an interview with the FAZ

Schmidt is accused of abusing his mandate and thereby damaging the social gathering. Because he’s stated to have apparently employed staff of his non-public e-cigarette firm in his Bundestag workplace, the place they’re stated to have been paid with tax cash. In addition, Schmidt is claimed to have met the now convicted Beijing spy from Maximilian Krah’s circle, Jian G., on a visit to China when he visited a diamond manufacturing facility. Jan Wenzel Schmidt himself can be stated to be energetic within the diamond enterprise; In Schmidt’s private circle you come throughout corporations like Best Friend Diamond GmbH and Diamond Memories GmbH.

Schmidt says it was a “normal” enterprise journey and that the allegations have been fabricated. The Bundestag member defends the truth that along with his work as a politician he’s additionally energetic in enterprise: “The fact that, in addition to my mandate, I do not make myself dependent on politics and am active in business is legitimate.” He wasn’t responsible of something: he did not violate any rules and he taxed and declared every thing correctly. He can show that and can accomplish that within the social gathering exclusion course of.

Schmidt explains the method by saying that they need to “get rid of him”. “That has to do with the fact that I became too influential for one or the other and told this clique what shouldn’t be done. Without me it’s pure self-service.” The “Klüngelrunde”, that’s imagined to be the interior circle of energy of the AfD Saxony-Anhalt, which can be referred to as the “poker round” inside the social gathering. Schmidt as soon as helped deliver it into being to be able to self-discipline the regional affiliation.

He is now accusing a number of MPs of not correctly accounting for enterprise journeys overseas and of partaking in nepotism by using one another’s relations of their MPs’ places of work. He additionally has proof for this.

Opinions inside the AfD differ as to how legitimate the allegations are. However, there’s a noticeable nervousness within the social gathering concerning the introduced, piecemeal presentation of the paperwork. Schmidt himself had introduced that he would ship this proof each week from the second week of January.

Schmidt can now not depend on a broad energy base. As we will hear, a number of members of the “poker group” dropped him. Were there fears that Schmidt would possibly declare a cupboard place after the state elections in September? Schmidt himself says he at all times stated he needed to remain in Berlin.

For the AfD and its formidable high candidate Siegmund, the affair is explosive as a result of it impacts long-time companions. Ulrich Siegmund, Jan Wenzel Schmidt and Matthias Lieschke are all among the many ranks of AfD politicians who entered the Magdeburg state parliament in spring 2016. With its good electoral success in Saxony-Anhalt, the social gathering established itself within the German social gathering panorama.

Jan Wenzel Schmidt subsequently performed a key position as state chairman of the Junge Alternative youth social gathering in additional radicalizing the AfD and networking it with new right-wing actions such because the “Identitarian Movement”. Despite his younger age, the skilled retail salesman shortly turned one of the influential individuals within the social gathering – at 34, he’s nonetheless a 12 months youthful than Ulrich Siegmund.

Jan Wenzel Schmidt’s title can be intently linked to the uncovering of doubtful dealings within the state’s personal lottery firm. In an investigative committee that was arrange at his instigation, his energetic inquiries in 2020 in the end led to the termination of the 2 Lotto managing administrators. This, presumably the AfD parliamentary group’s biggest parliamentary achievement thus far, additionally had an aftertaste: Schmidt had beforehand managed lottery gross sales retailers and tried to get a place as lottery district supervisor parallel to his mandate, which, nevertheless, failed. The discovery of the scandal was due to this fact typically seen in Magdeburg as a private vendetta by lottery insider Schmidt.

In the course of the 2021 federal election, Schmidt then moved from the state parliament to the Bundestag. By turning into common secretary, nevertheless, he retained his position as an inner social gathering puller within the regional affiliation. However, Schmidt encountered resistance together with his impolite strategies. Before the 2025 federal election, Schmidt, along with different forces within the social gathering management, needed to push by means of a waiver of direct candidacies. The mandates would have been awarded solely by way of the state listing. Critics such because the Bitterfeld AfD district chairman Daniel Roi feared that the AfD can be transformed right into a cadre social gathering.

At a celebration convention in the summertime of 2024, Schmidt was solely barely in a position to defend his place as common secretary towards Roi. Just a few months later, Roi was expelled from the state parliamentary group.

Then the tide turned: Roi’s camp now brazenly accused Schmidt of “nepotism” and a “variety of manipulative and unscrupulous” strategies and requested that he be voted out. Schmidt anticipated this by declaring his resignation on the night of the federal election in February 2025. Roi was allowed to return to the state parliamentary group, however the circle of Jan Wenzel Schmidt’s opponents grew bigger. There should even have been a break within the energy middle of the regional affiliation, the “Pokerrunde”.