Andrej Hunko

Andrej Konstantin Hunko (born 29 September 1963 in Munich) is a German politician (The Left). He has been a member of the German Bundestag since 2009^[1] and a member of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) since 2010.^[2] He has been deputy chairman of the Unified European Left parliamentary group since 2015 and deputy chairman of the Left parliamentary group in the Bundestag since 2020. He has been a member of the Executive Committee of the Left party since 2014.

Andrej Hunko (2014)

According to media, Andrej Hunko will leave The Left and participate in the new party Alliance Sahra Wagenknecht.^[3][4][5]

Biography

Hunko was born in Munich and grew up in Aachen,^[6] where he graduated from the Kaiser-Karls-Gymnasium in 1983 and did his Alternative civilian service with the Federation of Welfare Associations in Germany (Deutscher Paritätischer Wohlfahrtsverband). He is of Ukrainian descent.^[7] His grandfather fought for the Ukrainian National Army.

In 1985, he began studying medicine at the Albert-Ludwigs-University of Freiburg in southern Germany, which he terminated without graduation in 1991.^[7] In an interview in 2018, he said that this was "a reaction in 1991 to the Iraq war", "a not very mature reaction, as I find in retrospect".^[8] Afterwards, he held various jobs in Freiburg, Aachen, and Berlin, including truck driver, printer, nurse and journalist. From 1999 to 2004, he completed professional training as a media designer and worked as a media designer and printer. From 2007 to 2009 he was an employee of MEP Tobias Pflüger.

Since 2009, he is a member of the German Bundestag for the party The Left. He was re-elected in 2013 and in 2017. His electoral constituency is Aachen.

Focus of political work

In his first years as a member of the Bundestag, one of Hunko's main areas of work was the crisis policy of the EU member states and the EU itself. In his opinion, austerity measures imposed on the member states in crisis threatened democracy and social rights and did not solve the crisis but rather exacerbated it. For the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, he drafted a report on this subject entitled "Austerity measures – a danger for democracy and social rights".^[9] The accompanying resolution was adopted by a large majority.^[10] In the Bundestag, he repeatedly criticized German and European crisis policy.^[11][12]

An parliamentary inquiry by Hunko to the German government in 2016 revealed the importance of Ramstein Air Base for the U.S. drone warfare.^[13] Hunko is also one of eight signatories of a complaint against the German government for "aiding and abetting the murder" of the Iranian General Qasem Soleimani, an airport employee and four other people.^[14] The orders for the attack are said to have gone through the U.S. base at Ramstein.

Work as electoral observer

 

Andrej Hunko as head of the Election Observation Mission in Georgia (2018)

Andrej Hunko was a member of numerous Election Observation Missions (EOM) of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) and the OSCE. He observed the following elections, among others:

• 2010 Moldovan parliamentary election (PACE)^[15]
• 2011 Turkish general election (PACE)^[16]
• 2011 Kyrgyz presidential election (PACE)^[17][18]
• 2012 Kazakh legislative election (PACE)^[19]
• 2012 Ukrainian parliamentary election (PACE)^[20]
• 2014 Turkish presidential election (PACE)^[21]
• 2014 Ukrainian presidential election (PACE)^[22]
• 2014 Ukrainian parliamentary election (PACE)^[23]
• 2014 Macedonian general election (PACE)^[24]
• 2015 Belarusian presidential election (PACE)^[25]
• 2016 Georgian parliamentary election (PACE)^[26]
• 2017 Turkish constitutional referendum (PACE)^[27][28][29]
• 2018 Russian presidential election (OSCE)^[30]
• 2018 Georgian presidential election (PACE, Head of Delegation)^[31]
• 2020 United States presidential election (OSCE)^[32]

Hunko cancelled his participation in the Council of Europe's election observation delegation for the local elections in Ukraine in 2015 at short notice.^[33]

In April 2017, Hunko was part of the official PACE mission to observe the controversial Turkish constitutional referendum that criticized the referendum as an "unlevel playing field".^[34] As a reaction to critical reports Hunko and his PACE colleague Stefan Schennach from Austria made about the election process in east Turkey,^[35] he was accused by the Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and his Minister of Foreign Affairs Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu to be a supporter of the PKK, which is classified as a terrorist organization by the US, NATO, and Turkey but not the UN or PACE.^[36] In a statement, Hunko rejected those accusations as a "campaign to delegitimise" his person, arguing "they wish to present my statements on the disputed vote as unreliable and distract attention from the fact that the referendum on 16 April was held under undemocratic and unfair conditions, with electoral fraud possibly even responsible for the close result".^[37]

He was also scheduled as an OSCE election observer for the parliamentary and presidential elections in Turkey in 2018. However, Turkey refused his entry.^[38]

External links

 

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Andrej Hunko.

• Andrej Hunko's website
• Profile page for Andrej Hunko on the website of The Left parliamentary group

References

1. "Deutscher Bundestag - Andrej Hunko". Deutscher Bundestag (in German). Retrieved 19 October 2020.
2. "PACE - Andrej Hunko". Retrieved 19 October 2020.
3. "Wo liegt das Potenzial einer Wagenknecht-Partei?". JACOBIN Magazin (in German). 9 June 2023. Retrieved 20 October 2023.
4. "Zerstrittene Friedensfreunde in Brandenburg". www.rbb24.de (in German). 9 April 2023. Retrieved 20 October 2023.
5. "Linksfraktion im Bundestag: Aus eins wird drei?". www.fr.de (in German). 19 October 2023. Retrieved 20 October 2023.
6. Andrej Hunko. "Zur Person". Andrej-hunko.de (in German). Retrieved 20 October 2020.
7. "Antiimperialistische Front". Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung (in German). 10 January 2010. Retrieved 20 October 2020.
8. Franz Ludwig Averdunk (22 October 2018). "Der Protestler: Andrej Hunko". Das Parlament (in German).
9. PACE (2012). "Austerity measures – a danger for democracy and social rights - Doc. 12948 (2012)".
10. Andrej Hunko (27 June 2012). "Europarat für Neuorientierung der Krisenpolitik in Europa" (in German).
11. "Andrej Hunko: Europa wird sozial sein – oder es wird nicht sein". Linksfraktion.de (in German). 20 January 2011.
12. "Andrej Hunko: Stoppen wir ein autoritäres und austeritäres Europa". Linksfraktion.de (in German). 9 March 2012.
13. "USA führen Drohnenkrieg von Deutschland aus". NDR (in German). 30 November 2016.
14. "Linke-Abgeordnete zeigen Angela Merkel wegen Soleimanis Tötung an". Zeit Online (in German). 27 February 2020.
15. Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (24 January 2011). "Observation of the early parliamentary elections in Moldova (28 November 2010)". Retrieved 20 October 2020.
16. "Andrej Hunko als Wahlbeobachter in der Türkei" (in German). Retrieved 27 February 2020.
17. "Wahlbeobachtung der Präsidentschaftswahlen in Kirgisien" (in German). Retrieved 27 February 2020.
18. "Echte Aufbruchstimmung ist nicht zu spüren". junge Welt (in German). 1 November 2011. Retrieved 27 February 2020.
19. "OSZE-Kritik, Haftbesuch und Merkel-Appell: Schatten auf Kasachstan-Wahl". euractiv.de (in German). 16 January 2012. Retrieved 27 February 2020.
20. "Man muss jetzt fair mit der Ukraine umgehen". euractiv.de (in German). 29 October 2012. Retrieved 27 February 2020.
21. Parlamentarische Versammlung des Europarates (29 September 2014). "Observation of the presidential election in Turkey (10 August 2014)". pace.coe.int. Retrieved 6 October 2020.
22. Parlamentarische Versammlung des Europarates (23 September 2014). "Observation of the early presidential election in Ukraine (25 May 2014)". pace.coe.int. Retrieved 6 October 2020.
23. Jasper Barenberg (27 October 2014). "Ukraine-Wahl - "Zeichen wieder auf Eskalation"". Deutschlandfunk (in German). Retrieved 27 February 2020.
24. Parlamentarische Versammlung des Europarates (26 May 2014). "Observation of the presidential election (13 and 27 April 2014) and of the early parliamentary elections (27 April 2014) in "the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia"". Retrieved 6 October 2020.
25. "Andrej Hunko zur Wahlbeobachtung in Belarus" (in German). 7 October 2015. Retrieved 27 February 2020.
26. Parlamentarische Versammlung des Europarates (24 November 2016). "Observation of the parliamentary elections in Georgia (8 and 30 October 2016)". Retrieved 6 October 2020.
27. Ruth Ciesinger und Andrea Dernbach (17 April 2017). "Für Wahlbeobachter war Referendum "weder frei noch fair"". Tagesspiegel (in German). Retrieved 27 February 2020.
28. Beklan Kulaksızoğlu (17 April 2017). "Wahlbeobachter Hunko: "Behinderungen durch die Polizei"". Deutsche Welle (in German). Retrieved 27 February 2020.
29. "Diese Einblicke eines Wahlbeobachters sprechen Bände". Welt (in German). 18 April 2017. Retrieved 27 February 2020.
30. "Westen sollte Rückhalt Putins in der russischen Bevölkerung anerkennen". andrej-hunko.de (in German). 19 March 2018. Retrieved 27 February 2020.
31. "Observation of the presidential election in Georgia (28 October and 28 November 2018) PACE - Doc. 14784 (2018)". PACE. 14 December 2018. Retrieved 27 February 2020.
32. Ismar, Georg (3 November 2020). "Eine katastrophale Wahlinfrastruktur". Tagesspiegel (in German). Retrieved 4 November 2020.
33. "Andrej Hunko sagt nach Drohungen Wahlbeobachtung in der Ukraine ab" (in German). 23 October 2015. Retrieved 27 February 2020.
34. "Turkey's constitutional referendum: an unlevel playing field". assembly.coe.int. Retrieved 12 September 2017.
35. "Für Wahlbeobachter war Referendum "weder frei noch fair"". tagesspiegel.de. Retrieved 12 September 2017.
36. "Çavuşoğlu'ndan AGİT temsilcisine sert tepki". gazetevatan.com. Retrieved 18 April 2017.
37. "On the campaign to delegitimise Andrej Hunko". andrej-hunko.de. Retrieved 12 September 2017.
38. "Türkei lässt Abgeordneten Hunko zur Wahl nicht einreisen". Deutsche Welle (in German). 21 June 2018. Retrieved 27 February 2020.