Saxony’s state parliament lifted the parliamentary immunity of Frauke Petry, the co-chair of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, DW reports.

Petry is accused of lying under oath about campaign financing of the 2014 campaign in Saxony. AfD financed that campaign through a series of loans from its candidates. When one of its candidates refused the loan, he was taken off the party list.

Petry testified to an electoral oversight committee in November 2015 that she did not know of the loans at the time. That testimony has been disputed by a Die Linke MP. If found guilty, Petry faces six months to one year in jail.

Following the lifting of her immunity, prosecutors are bracing to press charges of alleged perjury. On the countdown for Germany’s national legislative elections on September 24, AfD is polling in the region of 9%, which means it will pass the 5% threshold and enter the Bundestag. </s> A German state legislature has lifted a prominent nationalist leader's immunity from prosecution, paving the way for a possible indictment over allegations she lied under oath.

The investigation of Frauke Petry, a national co-leader of Alternative for Germany, centers on different accounts that she and another party official gave to a parliamentary committee about a candidate list for a 2014 regional election.

Ivo Klatte, a spokesman for Saxony's regional parliament, told news agency dpa Tuesday no objections were raised against lifting Petry's immunity after a panel recommended the move — backed by Petry herself, who says she wants to clear her name.

The party hopes to enter Germany's national parliament in an election Sept. 24. Petry is one of its best-known figures but her influence has declined in recent months. </s> BERLIN (AP) - A German state legislature has lifted a prominent nationalist leader's immunity from prosecution, paving the way for a possible indictment over allegations she lied under oath.

The investigation of Frauke Petry, a national co-leader of Alternative for Germany, centers on different accounts that she and another party official gave to a parliamentary committee about a candidate list for a 2014 regional election.

Ivo Klatte, a spokesman for Saxony's regional parliament, told news agency dpa Tuesday no objections were raised against lifting Petry's immunity after a panel recommended the move - backed by Petry herself, who says she wants to clear her name.

FILE- In this April 22, 2017 file photo Frauke Petry looks thoughtful at the party convention of Germany's nationalist party AfD (Alternative for Germany) in Cologne, Germany. A German state legislature has lifted the prominent nationalist leader's immunity from prosecution, paving the way for a possible indictment over allegations she lied under oath. (AP Photo/Martin Meissner, file)

The party hopes to enter Germany's national parliament in an election Sept. 24. Petry is one of its best-known figures but her influence has declined in recent months. </s> BERLIN (Reuters) - A regional parliament has lifted the immunity of the best known politician in the anti-immigration Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, opening the way for prosecutors to pursue possible perjury charges against her.

Frauke Petry, leader of the anti immigration party Alternative fuer Deutschland (AFD) before a press conference in Berlin, Germany, May 15, 2017. REUTERS/Hannibal Hanschke

Frauke Petry, who is the AfD’s co-chairwoman, has been dogged by allegations that she lied under oath to a committee of the Saxony parliament about how the party’s campaign for the 2014 election in the state was financed.

The ending of her immunity from prosecution adds to the right-wing party’s problems less than four weeks before a national election. Weakened by infighting, it has bled support over the last year as voters’ concerns about immigration have eased.

Prosecutors have pursued the case against Petry, who denies the allegations, for more than a year.

Her immunity as a member of the Saxony’s parliament ended at midnight, a spokesman for the assembly said.

A spokesman for prosecutors in the state capital Dresden said they would await written confirmation of that from the parliament’s president before any further proceedings could be agreed upon.

The AfD is polling between 7 and 10 percent in opinion surveys - well down from a high of 15.5 percent at the end of 2016 but still clearing the 5-percent threshold needed to enter the federal parliament in the Sept. 24 national election.

Petry cuts an increasingly isolated figure in the AfD, which she transformed from an anti-euro party at its founding in 2013 into a group that taps into voters’ concerns about migration.

The party soared in the polls after Chancellor Angela Merkel’s decision in 2015 to open Germany’s borders to migrants fleeing war and poverty in the Middle East and beyond, of whom more than a million have since arrived.

At a party conference in April, Petry suffered a humiliating defeat when delegates refused to discuss her plan to shift the party towards the mainstream. </s> BERLIN (Reuters) - A regional branch of the anti-immigrant Alternative for Germany (AfD) split in two on Wednesday as a war of words erupted over the party's handling of an anti-Semitism row with one senior member sharply criticizing national co-leader Frauke Petry.

The AfD has won growing popular support in Germany due in part to Europe's migrant crisis, which has seen more than a million refugees arrive in the country over the past year. It now has seats in eight of Germany's 16 state assemblies.

However, the party encompasses a wide range of views which has led to a degree of internal strife. Wolfgang Gedeon, a doctor turned AfD lawmaker in the southern state of Baden-Wuerttemberg, caused outrage last month for his view that Holocaust denial was a legitimate expression of opinion.

Denial of the Nazi Holocaust, in which six million Jews were killed, is a crime in Germany.

A row ensued with the head of the AfD group in the state assembly, Joerg Meuthen, failing to win enough support for Gedeon to be expelled.

The crisis came to a head on Tuesday when 13 lawmakers, led by Meuthen, quit the parliamentary party in the state and national leader Frauke Petry rushed to Stuttgart. That led to Gedeon's resignation.

On Wednesday, the AfD parliamentary group -- originally numbering 23 -- officially split into two. Meuthen, widely seen as a moderate within the AfD, leads one group and Petry has said she backs the remaining members, minus Gedeon.

Petry's involvement has incensed some in the party who do not wholeheartedly support her.

In comments widely seen to undermine Petry, AfD Vice Chair on a national level, Alexander Gauland, launched a broadside against her, saying her dash to the state had merely helped escalate the crisis.

"I would never have thought of becoming politically active in (the state of) Saxony without Frauke Petry if there were difficulties there," he told Reuters Television. Petry is head of the AfD in the eastern state of Saxony.

A Forsa poll on Wednesday put nationwide support for the AfD at 9 percent, down 1 percentage point from the previous survey. Germany holds a federal parliamentary election next year.

In May, Gauland caused a storm by saying Germans would not want to live next door to national soccer star Jerome Boateng, born in Berlin to a Ghanaian father. </s> BERLIN (Reuters) - Frauke Petry, co-leader of the Alternative for Germany (AfD), said on Wednesday she would not lead the anti-immigration party’s campaign for a Sept. 24 federal election - a surprising move that could play into the hands of established parties.

FILE PHOTO: Anti-immigration party Alternative for Germany (AfD) chairwoman Frauke Petry delivers her keynote speech at the AfD's election campaign launch for the upcoming North Rhine-Westphalian federal state elections in Essen, Germany April 8, 2017. REUTERS/Wolfgang Rattay /File Photo

The shock decision by Petry, the face of the AfD, removes her from the very top of a party that has hurt Angela Merkel’s conservatives in regional votes but which may now pose less of a threat to the chancellor’s bid for a fourth term in office.

Petry’s announcement came after she caused controversy by tabling a motion for a congress next weekend in which she said the AfD - which is shunned by other parties - should be ready to join coalitions in future. She said some other senior AfD members like Alexander Gauland, however, wanted it to be a “fundamental” opposition party.

Speaking in a video message posted on her Facebook page, Petry denied suggestions that she had made the proposal with a view to becoming the party’s top candidate.

“In order to put an end to all speculation in this regard, I am using the opportunity of this video message to clearly state that I am neither available for a lone lead candidacy nor for participation in a top team,” she said.

Opinion polls show the AfD winning enough votes to enter the Bundestag lower house of parliament for the first time after September’s election.

But the party has lost about a third of its supporters since late last year, hit by a slowdown in migrant arrivals, AfD infighting and controversy over its attitude to the Nazi past.

Petry said she had decided not to run as it was important for the AfD to discuss issues such as her proposal on the party’s future strategy - which the majority of regional AfD branches oppose - without being hindered by personnel questions.

OTHER PARTIES TO GAIN?

Thomas Jaeger, a political scientist at Cologne University, said it would be hard for anyone else to rival Petry in terms of public profile, forcing whoever takes up the leadership role to take tough positions to get the same attention she has enjoyed.

Petry is a 41-year-old chemist from the former Communist East Germany and is expecting her fifth child.

A far right-wing candidate would probably still manage to lead the AfD into parliament but would deter some voters, said Jaeger.

“All those (parties) who lost some points - and that’s actually all of them - will regain some percentage points, albeit to differing extents,” he said.

The AfD, which rails against Merkel’s decision to allow more than a million migrants into Germany since mid-2015, is due to decide on its election leadership line-up at a weekend gathering in Cologne, where tens of thousands of protesters are expected.

Petry’s camp wants to expel from the party a senior member, Bjoern Hoecke, for calling Berlin’s Holocaust Memorial a “monument of shame” and saying history books should be re-written to focus more on German victims of the Nazis.

Petry managed to secure a two-thirds majority on the party executive board in favor of expelling Hoecke. However, the far-right wing of the AfD supports him and a party arbitration board must now decide his fate.

A Forsa opinion poll published on Wednesday showed the AfD winning eight percent in the election, well above the five percent threshold needed to win seats in the Bundestag. Merkel’s conservatives are seen remaining the largest party bloc.

Germany’s Der Spiegel magazine has reported that Petry’s opponents agreed at a secret meeting last week to form a team around Gauland, a 76-year-old publicist, and 38-year-old economist Alice Weidel - who, like Petry, wants Hoecke ousted.

The AfD could not be reached for comment on the report. </s> MOSCOW (Sputnik) — Frauke Petry, the leader of the anti-immigrant Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, said Wednesday she did not want to be its sole lead candidate for chancellorship in this September’s general election.

"I am not available either as a sole frontrunner or a member of a lead [campaign] team," she said in a video address on Facebook.

Petry refuted accusations of allowing a split inside the party that created two rival camps with competing strategies ahead of this weekend’s party conference in Cologne, and insisted the AfD needed to map out a joint strategy.

"It is important that we are able to discuss urgent issues, such as our [election] bid, which will determine AfD’s future in the coming months and years, without having to deal with alleged or real personnel problems," she said.

Germans are expected to vote on September 24 in a general election that will elect a new government and chancellor. This will be the second federal election for the populist AfD, founded in 2013, which is expected to win seats this time. </s> BERLIN — A leader of the nationalist Alternative for Germany has laid open differences inside the party after it surged to third place in Germany’s election, announcing she won’t join its new parliamentary caucus.

Frauke Petry is the co-chairwoman of Alternative for Germany, or AfD, but has increasingly been sidelined by other leaders over recent months. AfD was particularly successful in Petry’s home region of Saxony in Sunday’s election, and Petry herself won a seat.

Petry has said she wants to make the party ready for government in 2021, while others have made clear their priority is no-holds-barred opposition.

Petry said at a news conference Monday with other leaders: “An anarchic party … can be successful in opposition, but it cannot make voters a credible offer for government.”

Petry said she wouldn’t join AfD’s parliamentary caucus and walked out without taking questions.

Petry has differed over strategy with the AfD’s campaign headliners, Alice Weidel and Alexander Gauland, who she has suggested aren’t doing enough to attract middle-of-the-road voters to the party. Founded in 2013 to oppose financial bailouts of other euro-area countries, the AfD focused its campaign on vilifying Merkel for her open-borders refugee policy.

“I have decided that I won’t belong to the AfD caucus in the German Bundestag, but will sit for the time being as an individual member,” Petry, 42, told reporters.

Before walking out, she said the AfD needs to start a “conservative turnaround” with the aim of joining Germany’s government after the next scheduled election in 2021.

Petry, who won 37.4 percent of the vote in her district in the eastern state of Saxony, said she’ll nonetheless “continue to be active in making policy.” It wasn’t immediately clear whether any other members of the AfD’s 94-member caucus would join in her in sitting off on her own in parliament.

“A high share of votes for the AfD was predictable from the polls and we can continue to assume that the AfD will not influence government politics in Germany for the foreseeable future,” Commerzbank analysts including currency strategist Ulrich Leuchtmann said in a note to clients.

Petry’s move sheds light on discord within the lower house’s youngest party that remained below the surface during the campaign. While support for Merkel’s Christian Democratic-led bloc fell to the lowest since 1949, she won a mandate for a fourth term and no other party in parliament wants to ally with the AfD.

In an interview with the Leipziger Volkszeitung newspaper before the election, Petry said “middle-class voters are turning away” from the AfD because some of its members are making headlines that tarnish the party’s reputation.

Her criticism followed comments by Gauland, who said Chancellor Angela Merkel’s refugee commissioner, who is of Turkish descent, should be “disposed of” in Anatolia, a comment Merkel called racist.

Gauland, a former member of Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union, also said Germans have a right to take pride in the achievements of German soldiers in the 20th century’s two world wars.

With files from The Associated Press and Bloomberg News </s> BERLIN: Frauke Petry, leader of the Alternative for Germany (AfD), said on Wednesday she would not lead the anti-immigration party's campaign ahead of a Sept. 24 federal election.

"In order to put an end to all speculation in this regard, I am using the opportunity of this video message to clearly state that I am neither available for a lone lead candidacy nor for participation in a top team," she said on Facebook.

The AfD is holding a party congress at the weekend to decide on its leadership line-up for the election, at which the party is expected to win sufficient support to enter the Bundestag lower house of parliament for the first time.
The Landtag of the Free State of Saxony has lifted the immunity of Frauke Petry, Party Chair in the Alternative for Germany party, opening the way for prosecutors to pursue possible perjury charges against her concerning statements made to a committee of the Saxony parliament about how the party’s campaign for the 2014 election was financed.