Verdict: the Office for the Protection of the Constitution may continue to monitor Bayern-AfD – Bavaria

The Bavarian State Office for the Protection of the Constitution may continue to monitor the state AfD. The administrative court in Munich rejected the party’s corresponding applications on Monday. Accordingly, the state association may be observed on the basis of openly accessible information until a decision is made in the main proceedings.

The court announced on Monday that it was not possible to say when this would be successful. Since a court decision in October 2022, the Office for the Protection of the Constitution in Bavaria is no longer allowed to use intelligence tools to monitor the Bavarian AfD. The court did not make a decision on its admissibility on Monday. One does not currently assume that the Office for the Protection of the Constitution will use such means to monitor the AfD, said a court spokesman. Therefore, the national association could not defend itself against it.

In the decision in October 2022, the court had also temporarily prohibited the state office from “conducting public relations work regarding possible anti-constitutional efforts by the party”. On Monday, the administrative court announced that the LfV should at least inform the public about the observation based on openly accessible information.

According to statements by AfD members, “there are actual indications of anti-constitutional efforts, namely to invalidate the human dignity of Muslims and the principle of democracy,” the court said. “The statements showed continued agitation against the institutions and representatives of the state and against the democratic parties.” Even if the statements came from only some of the members and it is not clear whether they reflect the opinion of the entire party, they are “in any case an expression of an internal party dispute”.

The Bavarian Ministry of the Interior announced in September that the AfD is now also being observed in Bavaria as a whole party by the Office for the Protection of the Constitution. “This serves to clarify the extent to which there are efforts in the AfD as a whole party that are trying to impair or eliminate the core of the Basic Law,” the statement said.

Members of the state parliament would not be observed. A spokesman for the Bavarian Office for the Protection of the Constitution had already emphasized at the time: “In the context of proportionality, it must be taken into account that the AfD has not yet been classified as proven extremist.” Even before the court’s current decision, he made it clear that the state office is aware that not all conceivable measures are automatically permitted at all times.

The party recently celebrated its tenth anniversary. Ten years after it was founded in Bavaria, internal unrest is still a constant in Bavaria’s AfD: The parliamentary group has been deeply divided for years, and the camps in the party eye each other with skepticism and distrust. Since 2013, the AfD in Bavaria has worn out six state chairmen in this way – no one has held office for more than two years. In the state parliamentary group there were at least four different leadership duos in five years, and two times when a group leader left the party and group made headlines.

Despite all the internal quarrels, the AfD has been an established force in Bavaria since 2017 at the latest. After not running in the state elections in Free State in the year it was founded and the federal election result was rather poor at 4.3 percent, it already won 12.4 percent in the federal election in 2017. It is the best result of the state association in Bavaria to date.

In the 2018 state election, the AfD won 10.2 percent, which meant that 22 MPs moved into the Maximilianeum. Here, too, internal quarrels and power struggles caused problems: Currently there are only 17 AfDler in the parliamentary group due to party and parliamentary group exits. Since then, the supporters of the moderate national-conservative AfD part and the völkisch-nationalist camp have faced each other within the parliamentary group.

source site