Salary to wife of German far-right member halted amid nepotism row
A German state parliament has stopped salary payments to an 85-year-old employee of a far-right lawmaker, as the Alternative for Germany (AfD) party faces renewed nepotism allegations.According to administrators in the state parliament of North Rhine-Westphalia, the payments were stopped following a media report indicating that the employee - the wife of a fellow AfD member - may have had only a fictitious job.The president of the state parliament, André Kuper, had sent a letter to the AfD lawmaker in question, Klaus Esser, a state parliament spokesman told dpa."The member of parliament is being asked to comment on an employment relationship," he said.Kuper had informed Esser the salary payments "will be suspended until the matter has been clarified."News magazine Der Spiegel reported earlier on Friday that Esser had employed the woman on a mini-job basis, which provides minimal tax-free income.This is the latest in a series of recent reports about party members employing the relatives of fellow lawmakers that has resulted in increased scrutiny of the party.Esser rejected the allegations when asked by dpa, saying he was doing something for the participation of "older people" in the workforce.His employee was "mentally very fit" and works on small inquiries and applications from her home, he stressed."Society and parliament talk a lot about participation by older people — when you then put that into practice, it is suddenly supposed to be wrong," Esser told dpa.The elderly woman is married to an AfD member from the Sauerland region of North Rhine-Westphalia who no longer holds office in local politics.Another AfD parlimentarian - Enxhi Seli-Zacharias - has employed the wife of a Duisburg AfD local politician on a mini-job basis for about three years, the Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger newspaper reported.Since the husband is not a lawmaker in the state parliament, Seli-Zacharias told dpa that she saw no problem in employing the woman.A lawmaker may not employ the spouse of another lawmaker, according to NRW parliamentary rules, but this has not been violated, the spokesman for the state parliament said."Breaches of this rule are not known to the state parliament administration," he said.The AfD has faced such accusations before, sometimes even from within.Jan Wenzel Schmidt, a lawmaker in the national parliament for the AfD, levelled accusations against party colleagues in the state of Saxony-Anhalt.Meanwhile media reports revealed cases in which family members of AfD politicians from Saxony-Anhalt were employed by other members of the party, sometimes several members of one family.Other similar accusations have been levelled against AfD members in Lower Saxony, but have been vehemently denied by the members in question.
