It is frightening to see how swiftly my home country is transforming into a semi-totalitarian state. There are now serious efforts to ban Alternative for Germany (AfD), the leading opposition movement on the right and the country’s most popular party according to many polls. Would you label “democratic” a country that eliminates an unwelcome opposition party, let alone one that enjoys the support of around a quarter of all voters? Banning the opposition and chilling the free speech of its supporters would make Germany resemble a “People’s Republic of Germany” rather than a free country.
The new chancellor Friedrich Merz, who is not popular at all—in fact his approval ratings are miserable and only one fifth of all Germans consider him fit to lead the country—might be tempted to rid himself of the biggest competitor to his center-right CDU party. Merz, whose bid to become chancellor suffered an embarrassing setback in the first parliamentary vote on Tuesday, when he failed to secure majority support, will preside over a weak coalition with the Social Democrats. Polls indicate that many voters, including CDU supporters, are deeply unhappy with the coalition plans—or rather, the lack of any clear plans to deal with irregular mass migration and a proposed massive increase in public debt. Evidently, high voter dissatisfaction has intensified the temptation to eliminate the largest opposition party.
In recent days, the pressure has mounted on AfD after the domestic spy agency (called the “Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution,” in German Verfassungsschutz) published a press release designating it a “proven extremist” party.
This is a scandal in part because the Verfassungsschutz did not disclose evidence backing up this verdict. The spy agency has assembled a more than 1100-page report with supposed evidence, yet they keep this report secret. Would you consider a state to be under the rule of law if it charged and denounced an individual but did not allow him to see the evidence needed to defend himself? Well, Germany has now done that to an entire party.
The so-called “Office for the Protection of the Constitution” alleges that AfD undermines the free democratic order and violates the principle of human dignity by denying migrants the same rights as ethnic Germans. The agency calls the simple acknowledgment that there is a German people defined by common ancestry “ethnic nationalism”.
Some small parts of the spy agency’s report have been leaked to the press, providing a glimpse of the kind of evidence marshalled. The quotes from AfD members that the agency has assembled as evidence are extraordinary—that is, extraordinary that they were thought to constitute evidence of crimes against the constitution.
One tweet on X by an MP that the office finds scandalous reads: “Misguided migration policy and the abuse of asylum have led to the 100,000-fold importation of people from deeply backward and misogynistic cultures.” Another MP declared at a public meeting that Germans “must be allowed to decide again who actually belongs to this people and who doesn’t.” He also spoke of a “law of nature” that means “each and every one of you has more in common with me than with any Syrian or Afghan.” A third AfD politician is quoted with this statement: “Diversity means multiculturalism. And what does multiculturalism mean? Multiculturalism means loss of tradition, loss of identity, loss of homeland, murder, manslaughter, robbery and gang rape.”
Yes, you can argue that all this is highly polemical. But unconstitutional? What about free speech?
AfD leader Alice Weidel, who is married to a woman of Sri Lankan descent, has blasted as deeply undemocratic the attempts to ban her party, and she vows to fight back. She and her co-party leader have promised to “continue to take legal action against this defamation that jeopardizes democracy.”
Even U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio intervened and condemned the intelligence agency’s move, calling it “tyranny in disguise.” In truth, this tyranny isn’t very disguised. It might sound shocking to non-German ears that the spy authority is already now allowed to use wiretaps, hack into computers and emails, infiltrate the party with undercover agents, and even send agents provocateur to “gain information.” Especially in East Germany, many citizens are reminded of the methods the former GDR secret service agency, the Stasi, used to subvert and destroy the opposition.
What is happening in Germany is highly alarming. Politicians from all parliamentary parties, from the SPD, the Greens, and the Left, but also from the conservative CDU, are pushing for a vote to start the process of banning the AfD. Ultimately, this will be decided by the Federal Constitutional Court in Karlsruhe. The legal procedure likely will take several years, but it could be completed before the next regular date for federal elections in 2029. Thus, the AfD could be banned by the next election, disenfranchising around a fourth of the electorate.
The totalitarian fantasies of those who purport to “save democracy” by attempting to suppress the main opposition party have been laid out quite clearly by the CDU politician Marco Wanderwitz, one of the main proponents of a ban:
We would basically pull the plug on this party. The party would be banned and its assets confiscated. All the people who work for the party would immediately lose their jobs. All mandates, from honorary local councilors to seats in the European Parliament, would be annulled immediately. All employees of MPs and parliamentary groups at all levels would instantly lose their jobs. We would reduce the structure of the AfD to zero.
That, according to Wanderwitz, would provide “a breathing space for democracy.” Others might call it the suffocation of democracy.
It now all comes down to Friedrich Merz and the CDU leadership to decide whether they support a vote in the federal parliament to begin banning AfD. For now, they seem inclined to hesitate. Some leaders have invoked tactical arguments against the move: AfD might gain further support in the short term from citizens who are enraged about the suppression of opposition and free speech. Others point to legal hazards: It is not guaranteed that the court in Karlsruhe would follow the request to ban AfD. However, the court is packed with former party politicians of the CDU, SPD, and the Greens, and most are very close to the ruling class. Many observers doubt that the judges will uphold the principles that constitute a free country.
Yet Merz might opt to wait and scrutinize the “evidence” gathered by the Verfassungsschutz spy agency. This is what the designated Minister of the Interior Alexander Dobrindt (from the sister party CSU) has announced will happen. But the pressure to move towards a ban is getting stronger and hangs like a sword of Damocles not only above the head of the AfD, but above the whole German democracy.
Banning popular opposition candidates from running has become something of a fashion in EU countries, as we have witnessed in Romania and France. Banning an entire party would be a novelty. It would turn Germany into an authoritarian “controlled democracy.”
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