The far-right populist doubled its voter support to 20.8% in February’s election, making it the second-largest power in the Bundestag. That gives it fresh momentum to target the older parties and media with a constant stream of provocations, hostility and agitation.
is known for her harsh rhetoric. In parliamentary debates she has derided Muslim immigrants as “headscarf girls’ and “knife men.” That type of noise makes headlines and headlines get attention. Attention means success and success means more noise. Such is the attention economy of right-wing strategists.
However, such xenophobia violates the principles of Germany’s open, pluralistic society, where the right to equal treatment before the law is a fundamental value. “No one may be disadvantaged or favored because of their gender, origin, race, language, homeland and origin, faith, religious or political views,” reads Germany’s , the country’s constitution.
When constitutional lawyers warn against the AfD as a threat to democracy, it is primarily because of this issue of equal treatment of citizens.
“The unconstitutionality arises above all from the fact that the AfD does not share the principle of equal freedom. In Germany, the constitution guarantees equal human dignity and, accordingly, equal freedom,” according to Matthias Goldmann, professor of International Law at EBS University in Hesse.
‘Enemy of the German constitution’
Stefan Möller is a new member of the Bundestag for the AfD, hailing from where voters dealt him a resounding victory. However, the Thuringian Office for the Protection of the Constitution says it has evidence that Möller is an “enemy of the constitution.”
On July 17, 2023 Stefan Möller took to the platform X to post: “Whether you are German is decided between your ears, not on paper.” This suggests that for Möller, not everyone who holds a German passport is really a German.
Many worry about the rise of the AfD because it wants millions of people to leave the country, though it deliberately blurs what the criteria for who exactly it means. AfD leaders have repeatedly come up with deportation fantasies for Germans with an immigration background: The party’s honorary chairman Alexander Gauland, for example, once suggested they “dispose of former Bundestag president Aydan Özoguz in Anatolia.”
The influential has written a book in which he envisages a “large-scale remigration project” which will require “well-tempered cruelty” in its execution. “This means that human hardship and unpleasant scenes cannot always be avoided,” Höcke writes. This is a person AfD chancellor candidate Alice Weidel said she would appoint as a minister in her cabinet if she ever came into government.
Law professor Matthias Goldmann warns that the AfD has plans to revamp the country’s citizenship law: “There is a proposal that dual citizenship could be revoked for certain criminals,” Goldmann told DW.
Attempt to undermine democratic concensus
According to Goldmann, the AfD has managed to ensure that such proposals are now being discussed by supporters of the traditional conservative parties. Goldmann sees this as proof of success of the AfD’s strategy, the aim of which is to undermine the basic democratic consensus.
The AfD will now be the As such its lawmakers will be entitled to significantly more speaking time. As it holds just under 25% of the seats, however, it cannot set up parliamentary inquiry committees. With a third of the seats, it could have blocked the appointment of judges.
With time, warnings about the party being a threat to democracy seem to be wearing thin. Many people in Germany have become accustomed to the constant provocations.
For her part, Weidel is trying to turn the tables and accuses the other parties of being a danger to democracy for refusing to cooperate with the AfD.
On the regional level, the party is wielding its radical influence. In the small state of Thuringia, the AfD now holds a “blocking minority” as it holds more than a third of the seats in parliament. For weeks, the AfD has used this blocking minority to prevent the election of new judges and public prosecutors in the state, putting a spanner in the works of a functioning democracy. To Goldmann, the reasoning behind these actions is obvious: “The AfD wants to influence the judiciary,” he says.
Goldmann is one of sixteen constitutional lawyers behind a
This article was originally written in German.
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