Arno Bausemer in Stendal: Political crash in the election campaign

Arno Bausemer appears in Stendal - and with him a political crash between the election campaign, investigative files and the provincial stage. After the AfD MEP hit the national headlines because of the accusation of injuring a 14-year-old with a baseball bat after damaging a banner, the debate in one round of elections remained surprisingly low-key; Only the Green candidate attacked him head-on, while Bausemer framed the whole thing as a “victim-perpetrator reversal”.

As the process progressed, the image of a politician who had previously attracted attention through questionable statements, now delivered a bizarre mixture of self-dramatization, going into hiding and crisis PR with Facebook posts, boys' freedom statements and a drunk driving incident that later became known, grew stronger. In terms of content, the case remains a blur between alleged self-defense and possible aggression: Bausemer speaks of a knife, a “piece of wood” and fixation on the fence, the investigators are checking, the AfD leadership first maneuvers, then distances itself half-heartedly, but internally there is an audible crunch.

In the evening, the actual soundtrack of this election campaign finally emerges in Weferlingen: bratwurst, beer, loudspeakers, pathos of departure - and a party that prefers to keep the Bausemer incident out of the feed so that the campaign machine doesn't come to a standstill.