Bundestag
Wanderwitz: Enough supporters for AfD ban proposal
CDU MP Marco Wanderwitz has been calling for an AfD ban for some time. Photo
© Kay Nietfeld/dpa
The former Eastern Commissioner has been drumming up support for a ban on the AfD for a long time. He now says he has enough votes to make a move. A new alliance is pursuing the same goal.
CDU MP Marco Wanderwitz wants to introduce a He has tabled a motion to ban the AfD and says he has found enough supporters to do so. To put such a motion on the agenda, five percent of MPs are needed, i.e. 37. “We have them together,” the former Federal Government Commissioner for Eastern Europe told the newspaper “taz”. A new alliance of associations is also calling for an “AfD ban now” and wants to win a majority in the Bundestag for it.
Parliament could submit a motion to ban the party, as could the federal government and/or the Bundesrat. The Federal Constitutional Court would then have to decide on the matter. Critics warn that the process would be very lengthy and the outcome in Karlsruhe would be uncertain. There are also concerns about banning a party with high voter approval.
Wanderwitz has been calling for a ban for some time. Now he said that they are still waiting for the written reasons for the judgment from the Higher Administrative Court in Münster. In May, the court confirmed that the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution had classified the AfD as a suspected right-wing extremist case. “When the reasons for the judgment are available, we will take a close look at it and then submit our application for a ban updated and well-founded.” The democratic constitutional state cannot simply let a party “that spreads hatred and incitement around the clock and wants to abolish this constitutional state continue until it is too late,” said the Saxon CDU MP.
New alliance calls for “AfD ban now”
The campaign “Defend human dignity – ban the AfD now” justifies its initiative in a similar way: “In recent years, the AfD has developed into a party dominated by extreme right-wing forces. It spreads ethnic-racist ideas, mocks democracy and attacks the rule of law.”
The people behind this are the director of the Buchenwald Memorial Foundation, Jens-Christian Wagner, the social expert Ulrich Schneider, and various activists, associations and advisory centers. They argue that a ban could destroy the party’s organizational structure, deprive it of state funding and take away its legitimacy.
The federal director of the Left Party, Katina Schubert, supported the campaign. “We think that’s a great idea,” said Schubert in Berlin. A ban on the AfD must now be considered very seriously. “We can’t get around it any longer.”
Since the founding of the Federal Republic, only two applications to ban political parties have been successful in Karlsruhe: in 1952 against the neo-Nazi Socialist Reich Party (SRP) and in 1956 against the Communist Party of Germany (KPD).