Germany’s Defence Minister Boris Pistorius, together with Baden-Württemberg’s state minister Cem Özdemir, is calling for the start of a process that would end with a ban on the AfD. They are making the proposal just before the state election in Saxony-Anhalt, where the AfD is on course to win 40 per cent.
Pistorius and Özdemir want to defend democracy by depriving 40 per cent of voters of influence. They are disenfranchised. In the name of democracy. The question is what kind of democracy this will be.
It is in an article in Frankfurter Allgemeine that the two launch the idea of a ban. They want to restrict it to the right wing of the AfD, but at the same time they say that they want a ban in five eastern states. They thus want to deprive the party of its core areas.
The SPD itself is only a shadow of its former self.
The two argue that the AfD not only wants remigration, but also extols a Germany built on blood ties.
The AfD party branches in Saxony-Anhalt, Saxony, Thuringia and Brandenburg were dominated by ethno-nationalist figures who regarded “real Germans” as people with “the right blood, the right ancestry and the right convictions”, Pistorius and Özdemir said in a joint article in Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. “They do not want a better democracy; they want to put an end to democracy,” they added, while calling for the “immediate initiation” of legal measures to consider banning the AfD in the four states.
The German establishment stands for multiculturalism and open borders. The AfD wants to return to German culture and German values. These are incompatible positions, but the establishment refuses to acknowledge that these are legitimate differences. Instead, they want a ban.
The mere proposal of a ban increases tensions ahead of the election and may suggest that the SPD is desperate.
The AfD is polling at 40 per cent in Saxony-Anhalt, which goes to the polls on 6 September, and at 28 per cent nationwide.
The very idea of criminalising such a large party is staggering.
The establishment says it is doing this to defend democracy, but it is doing so through bans and censorship. Parties of this size cannot be banned without enormous costs.
Chancellor Friedrich Merz (CDU) said last year that a ban smacked too much of wanting to eliminate a competitor.
This was after the domestic intelligence service concluded that the AfD was far-right.
The AfD profoundly provokes the German elite’s self-image. They simply cannot live with the fact that Germans are rejecting them and turning to the AfD.
A ban would have major repercussions because of Germany’s role in Europe and, not least, in its relationship with the United States.
https://www.ft.com/content/593c2cde-cf0d-4dcd-a170-9cb1dc9ed896?syn-25a6b1a6=1
