Establishment Bureaucrats Move Forward With Plan To Repress Popular German Right-Wing Party

Germany’s Social Democratic Party (SPD) officially launched an effort seeking to ban the Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, according to The Berliner on Monday.

SPD delegates voted unanimously on Sunday to establish a “federal working group” commissioned to collect and present evidence of AfD’s extremism—“evidence they say is already ‘overwhelming,’” The Berliner reported. The resolution, adopted during SPD’s three-day party congress in Berlin, calls for the collection and presentation of evidence of AfD’s extremism

“Based on historical experience, we have a constitution that provides the necessary instruments,” SPD leader Lars Klingbeil told members during the meeting, according to Deutsche Welle. “The moment at which domestic intelligence says this is a confirmed right-wing extremist party, there is no more room for tactics.”

The SPD accused the AfD of weakening Germany’s constitution and systematically eroding faith in democracy, arguing the party’s advocacy for “remigration” of individuals with migrant backgrounds constitutes a violation of human dignity and an attempt to dismantle the liberal democratic system, according to The Berliner.

In Germany, the power to ban a political party rests exclusively with the Federal Constitutional Court, not the government or parliament. A ban requires a two-thirds majority of the Justices in the Senate of the Federal Constitutional Court, reflecting an extremely high bar for such a measure.

“If the application proves to be well-founded in the principal proceedings, the Federal Constitutional Court declares that the political party is unconstitutional, orders the dissolution of the party and prohibits the establishment of substitute organizations,” The Federal Court states.