It has also seen private donations and state funding shrink this year, AfD treasurer Klaus Fohrmann wrote in an email to party members seen by regional newspaper group RND. "We are in serious financial distress," he said, asking the roughly 38,000 members to come up with a further annual contribution of 120 euros. Any new money will go into a legal defence fund the party is setting up to challenge potential close observation by Germany's VS domestic intelligence service. Party leaders fear that close observation by VS -- tasked with fending off threats to Germany's democratic order -- could count against them with voters. AfD shook up Germany's political landscape when it won 12.6 percent of the vote in the 2017 general elections, taking dozens of seats in the Bundestag for the first time.

Source: The Local December 21, 2019 09:08 UTC