The “Gelbhaar-Habeck-Scandal”continues to cause unrest in the Green Party’s election campaign. A press conference with the two party chairmen was subdued and suboptimal. The federal executive is currently not responding to a media inquiry about the exchange of information between a party attorney and Gelbhaar’s lawyer at the start of the week. Andreas Audretsch, Habeck’s election manager and a Berlin party colleague of Gelbhaar, told the Berliner Tagesspiegel that he “had nothing to do with the entire affair”(paywall).
The Business Insider portal cites contents of a letter from the Green Party’s legal department to Gelbhaar’s lawyer. Previously, the federal chairmen, Felix Banaszak and Franziska Brantner, on a joint press conference in Berlin, stated that they “condemn”the now partially fabricated harassment allegations, only to then explain that they could not make any statements about the allegations because they could not make any statements about the allegations, thus also not about the severity of the accusations.
According to Banaszak, seven more people are still holding on to their allegations. The BI article reports that the editorial office has a letter from the Green Party’s federal association in possession. This was apparently written after the press conference. The content is as follows:
In it, a party attorney concretizes that the allegations of the seven women do not concern criminal offenses. This is relevant because in the last weeks, mainly allegations of sexual harassment against Gelbhaar have been in the air.
The formulation in the letter reads:
I would like to clarify that, in the usual language of ombudsmen, ‘boundary violations’ are not to be equated with ‘criminal offenses.’ Rather, ‘boundary violation’ means a self-perceived transgression of the personal well-being by the concerned individuals.
Furthermore, the letter notes that the described events of the alleged victims of Gelbhaar “appear to be similar.”A request from Business Insider to the party central office, as to why the federal executive has left unmentioned that it is not about criminal offenses, remained unanswered until now.
Ario Mirzaie, a Berlin Green member, is now at the center of the intrigue, so the Berliner Zeitung in a report, the former employer of the ex-employee and queer officer Shirin Kreße. Kreße is the alleged true identity of the fake victim “Anne K.”and stepped back from her offices and the Greens after it became known that she had filed false harassment allegations against Stefan Gelbhaar with the RBB broadcaster.
Another ex-employee of Mirzaie’s is Hacer Aydemir. She presents herself on her Instagram profile with the description: “Your favorite cunt for the Bundestag (‘Deine Lieblingsfze für den Bundestag’).”
According to the Berliner Zeitung, Aydemir’s home address is almost identical to that of “Anne K.”in her affidavit, an accident? Upon inquiry, Aydemir writes that she is “in no way”involved in the harassment allegations against Stefan Gelbhaar. “I did not participate in Anne K.’s affidavit. Any contrary claims are false.”That “Anne K.’s address only minimally differs from hers? ‘I have no explanation for that.'”
Stefan Gelbhaar had resigned from his candidacy for the second spot on the Green Party’s state list for the Bundestag on December 14 due to the harassment allegations. Habeck’s election manager Audretsch, who had already been considered to have higher chances of winning before the scandal and the election, received the spot instead. The Berliner Zeitung adds to the peculiarities:
Since the Greens reserve the first and third spots for women, the next possible spot for him [Gelbhaar] would have been the number four. Surprisingly, Hacer Aydemir took the fourth spot on December 14.
To the Berliner Tagesspiegel, Audretsch now stated on January 18 that he cannot understand the commotion surrounding his person in the scandal. He had never influenced any decisions, not those of Stefan Gelbhaar, the Pankow district association, or political decision-makers.
Audretsch gave a statement: “Every attempt to connect me to such a thing is unallowable and unfair.”
Robert Habeck stated in the talk show “Maischberger”about the incident that he recognizes “criminal energy”so “it is right that the federal executive has taken a hard stance against it.