Motion To Ban AfD Could Be Discussed in German Bundestag Next Week

One way to establish a dictatorship is to ban the opposition. Is Germany on its way to a new form of government, a "multi-party dictatorship"?

From The European Conservative

By Zoltán Kottász

The losers of the recent regional elections continue using all available legal methods to punish the second most popular party.

The thought of banning the second most popular party in Germany, the right-wing Alternative für Deutschland (AfD), has cropped up again following the recent electoral successes of the party. Despite a group of lawmakers signalling their support for the federal parliament (Bundestag) to discuss such a motion, many are wary of bringing the case to the constitutional court, fearing that the court would reject a ban, thus benefiting the AfD politically.

Following the party’s first-ever regional election victory in Thuringia, and its strong second-place finish in Saxony and Brandenburg, mainstream forces are rightly concerned about their ability to keep AfD from having political influence. But instead of listening to voters and initiating better policies—like a tougher stance on immigration—they are trying to make life as hard as possible for their political rivals in a bid to undermine their credibility and popularity—such as designating the party as a “suspected extremist organisation,” withholding state funds, publishing false media reports, and agreeing to prevent the AfD from getting close to power.

An outright ban of the party has been suggested in recent years by many politicians, and the issue has come to the fore once again. A centre-right CDU member of the Bundestag, Marco Wanderwitz, gathered more than the necessary 37 signatures for the parliament to discuss backing such a motion. If a motion were passed, the constitutional court would then decide whether the AfD poses a threat to the country’s democratic order and the rule of law.

In their draft motion, the signatories—lawmakers of the CDU, the Social Democrats (SPD), the Greens, and the hard-left Die Linke—are also calling for the AfD to be excluded from state funding. “The AfD is a racist, antisemitic, and right-wing extremist party. It opposes the central basic principles of the free democratic basic order,” the draft reads. According to the German news agency dpa, the lawmakers plan to present the motion to parliamentary groups sometime after October 8th.

However, writes conservative publication Junge Freiheit, there seems to be an aversion among most of the Bundestag MPs to even ask the court to impose a ban—mostly because constitutional law experts believe the AfD does not meet the conditions required for a ban, namely because it does not fight the free democratic basic order “aggressively and combatively.” If the court would also see it that way, it would be a humiliating defeat for the other parties of the Bundestag.

“The failure would be a catastrophe,” Konstantin Kuhle of the liberal FDP party said, warning that a rejection by the court would only benefit the AfD politically. Gesine Schwan of the SPD also talked of such a move being “counterproductive,” while Alexander Throm of the CDU said his party wants to “fight the AfD politically and expose its extremism” and therefore, the CDU will vote against the motion in the Bundestag.

Sahra Wagenknecht, who split from Die Linke and founded her own left-wing nationalist party, which came third in all recent regional elections, called the proposal the “stupidest motion of the year,” saying it would be an “election campaign gift” for the AfD.

Nevertheless, Vice Chancellor Robert Habeck of the Greens said if enough evidence is provided against the AfD, then the motion should be supported.

The right-wing party is currently polling in second place at 19% a year before federal elections are due to take place. The biggest losers of the recent regional elections, the Greens, the Social Democrats, and Die Linke have lost the trust of their supporters, with only thirty percent of the electorate still backing the three-party left-liberal federal government coalition.