Mark Hauptmann is the third German parliamentarian among Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservatives to exit over lobbying claims. Hauptmann denies reports he accepted money for tourism ads DW reports.
Just days before two key state elections, German Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservative party bloc was further bruised on Thursday by a third exit from a member of parliament.
Mark Hauptmann, a lawmaker with the Christian Democrats (CDU) from the state of Thuringia, quit his seat in the Bundestag on Thursday amid pressure over lobbying allegations.
His resignation follows departures — to varying degrees — by another CDU politician Nikolas Löbel, and Georg Nüsslein of Merkel's Bavarian affiliate Christian Social Union (CSU) party, over alleged pandemic face mask business dealings that sparked criticism last weekend.
What did Hauptmann say?
Hauptmann's departure follows a report by news magazine Spiegel over Azerbaijani, Taiwanese and Vietnamese tourism ads run in the "Südthüringer Kurier," a CDU-near local newspaper he publishes. He had been accused of accepting money from foreign agencies.
Hauptmann told Die Welt newspaper he "strongly refuted suspicions" and "misrepresentations" raised in the report.
