After Saxony-Anhalt, will Germany now consider banning the AfD?

Anybody hoping German chancellor Friedrich Merz would respond to the far-right Alternative für Deutschland victory in Saxony-Anhalt with a clear sense of direction probably came out of Monday’s (7 September) press conference disappointed. He vowed to continue his economic reform programme, consisting of tax breaks for the rich, welfare cuts and harsh migration policies, which, until now, clearly, has not been popular with the masses. He also equated the AfD (a party several state intelligence agencies label as extremist, and a danger to democracy), with Die Linke, another party Merz does not like, but which has, one has to admit, not had to disband its youth wing after activists called for Jews to be rounded up in ghettos, or been recorded looking for volunteers willing “to shoot women and children.” Nor has a state-level leader been fined €13,000 for using a slogan SA stormtroopers used to engrave on daggers, “Alles für Deutschland” (Everything For Germany), during a speech. The question that arose quickly after the AfD’s electoral victory was whether or not to ban the party. It is a question that comes up a lot in German society. But so far, Merz and his CDU have remained largely silent on the subject. The CDU’s least-Wüst option? That changed on Monday, when Hendrik Wüst, minister-president of North Rhine-Westphalia, whom many see as a favourite to replace Merz as chancellor, said the government should make serious work of examining whether to ban the AfD. Wüst in many ways is Merz’ opposite. He runs his state government with the Greens largely drama-free. And he is popular. In an INSA ranking published the day after the Saxony-Anhalt vote, Wüst placed third of 20 politicians. Merz came last. Wüst isn't the first to call for a ban. The Society for Civil Rights (GFF) published a legal opinion of 1,675 pages (and another 1,400-pages in documentation) listing the AfD's violations of democratic principles, and many politicians on the left have consistently called for the party to be banned. Cem Özdemir, Baden-Württemberg's Green minister-president, and defence minister Boris Pistorius (SPD) called for a ban on the nationalist wing of the AfD in August. Crucially however, Wüst, as he himself pointed out, is the first from his party to do so. And with a powerful CDU politician now saying the same thing, chances that a ban could seriously be considered seem more likely. There is deep disagreement however. Stephan Kramer, Jewish president of the Thuringian domestic intelligence agency and a coordinator at Germany's federal intelligence services has consistently advocated banning the AfD for years, and recently did so again on German radio. Political scientist Wolfgang Merkel, in a recent interview alongside SPD politician Carmen Wegge, who supported a ban, also disagreed and warned that a ban would be a "gross violation of popular sovereignty", and said the "damage from a failed motion would be immense." A ban can only be imposed by the Federal Constitutional Court in Karlsruhe, and would need support from six of the eight judges of its Second Senate. Some fear a ban for other reasons. Jan Gorkow, a well-known musician who has written a book on the topic, said in August that he fears "some AfD supporters here will declare a so-called 'Day X',” referring to far-right shorthand for the day the constitutional order collapse. Holocaust survivor Charlotte Knobloch, the former president of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, however told Stern magazine that "Perhaps it's still worth a try." The 93-year-old said that "in many areas, I see no difference between the AfD and the Nazi Party before it came to power." It may all depend on what happens with the CDU's political leadership. Wüst for his part did not offer full-throated support for a ban. "I warn against hasty decisions," he said, but he called for an expert working group to “thoroughly examine” a potential ban, based on the facts. It may just take a change at the top for him, and Germany, to take that decision.