German Intelligence Detected No Foreign Interference In Parliamentary Elections

BERLIN (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 28th October, 2021) The German intelligence services did not identify any significant interference in the electoral process during the elections to the Bundestag, which took place in September, but recorded information attacks on candidates and the spread of fake news, the President of the German Federal Intelligence Agency, Bruno Kahl, said on Wednesday.

"In these elections, as well as in the previous regional elections, we did not record any activity that would be directed specifically at the election process and its legitimacy ... What we have recorded is the growth of the so-called background noise - the activity of foreign intelligence services and actors who are present both in the media and on social networks to impact existing public discussions that can contribute to the division of society, facilitate radicalization. This activity slightly increased before the elections, but cannot be characterized as a campaign," Kahl said at the hearing in the Bundestag.

The President of Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution, a counterintelligence service, Thomas Haldenwang, said that in the run-up to the elections, the intelligence services detected "massive campaigns against individual participants, especially Green Party's candidate for chancellor, Annalena Baerbock, who was attacked using fake information, for example through the spread of fake news," adding that every politician attacked was informed of such incidents.

On September 26, Germany held parliamentary elections, in which the Social Democrats emerged victorious, marginally outperforming outgoing Chancellor Angela Merkel's ruling conservative bloc of the Christian Democratic and Christian Social Unions. The Green Party and the Free Democratic Party came in third and fourth places, respectively, followed by the far-right Alternative for Germany and the Left Party.