When should you ban a far-right party? A motion to consider a ban of the Alternative for Germany (AfD), signed by 113 members of parliament, has been submitted to Bundestag. It’s a sign of how concerned politicians across the political divide are about the resilience of German democracy to the far right party, which has been winning support despite being monitored for several years as a “suspected right-wing extremist organisation”. But banning it would be risky.
Carmen Wegge, member of the Bundestag for the social democratic SPD, is one of the politicians who initiated this step towards a possible ban. “In my view, German democracy is in danger because the AfD is an anti-constitutional party that is reaching for power and has a realistic chance of gaining it,” she explains.
Discussions about a ban have been ongoing for months—in October a cross-party group of MPs first outlined the plan to ask the Federal Constitutional Court to examine a possible ban—but the pressure is now on because the group wants the Bundestag to vote on the motion before the end of this legislative period, and the governing “traffic light” coalition collapsed last week, triggering a snap election. A majority of parliamentarians would need to support a ban for it to be considered by the court, but only 113 out of 734 members of parliament have backed the proposal so far, and few of the supporters are leading figures in their parties.
“Wehret den Anfängen”—literally “resist the beginnings” or “nip things in the bud”—is a historical lesson taught in German schools. The Nazis received more votes than any other party in federal elections before seizing power, and the aim of the ban is to ensure that enemies of democracy should never again be given the opportunity to abolish democracy in Germany from within. But such a measure should not be taken lightly: “The party ban procedure is perhaps the sharpest sword of militant democracy,” says Michaela Hailbronner, a public law professor at the University of Münster.
The party is Germany’s second most popular, with 18 per cent of support, and it hopes to profit further from Germany’s current political fragility. In recent state elections in the eastern states of Saxony and Brandenburg, the AfD came second, securing 31 and 29 per cent of the vote respectively. In Thuringia, the AfD won, claiming the biggest electoral success of a far-right party since the end of the Second World War.
Reports of extremist behaviour in its ranks haven’t damaged its popularity. Party members have labelled migrants and Muslims “knifemen”, “invaders”, “intruders” and “parasites”, while prominent AfD figures have trivialised Germany’s Nazi past. At the end of 2023, some AfD members attended a meeting where plans to deport millions of people with a non-German ethnic background were discussed. In Thuringia in September, the AfD’s Jürgen Treutler, who acted as honorary president of the state parliament, turned the first parliamentary session after the state election into chaos by shooting down motions from the other parties. Most recently, several AfD members were arrested in a police swoop on an alleged far-right terror cell. They have since been excluded by the party’s executive committee.
Many people in Germany—especially migrant communities—feel a growing sense of hopelessness and insecurity. “There is a large part of the population that is afraid of the AfD,” says Wegge. A survey by the German Centre for Integration and Migration Research (DeZIM) showed in September that almost one in four people with a migrant background were at least considering leaving Germany in view of the AfD’s electoral success. More would consider moving to another part of the country if the AfD were to join the government in their federal state.
If the ban is successful, the AfD will be dissolved, and its MPs would automatically lose their seats in the Bundestag as well as in state parliaments. Founding a successor organisation would be prohibited. Members of the AfD could only start a new party if it differed enough from the AfD—in other words if it was less extreme. The Constitutional Court can also order the confiscation of the party’s assets.
Hendrik Cremer, who works research associate at the German Institute for Human Rights, hopes that it would stop “the concrete danger [the AfD] poses of gaining all power, eliminating liberal democracy based on the rule of law, establishing a state according to its extreme right-wing, nationalist ideas.” In his analysis as an observer of the party for many years, the AfD has shifted onto an extreme course and if a ban was successful, the party would lack the structures and financial resources to organise itself. The spiral would be interrupted.
But opinions are divided over whether bans work. In Turkey, two predecessor parties of the governing conservative AKP (Justice and Development party) were banned for “anti-secular activities” and, in 2008, the AKP narrowly escaped being banned again. Some cite the party’s current success as proof that banning parties is ineffective. Instead of weakening the AKP or deterring illiberal behaviour, the attempted party closure backfired and accelerated Turkey’s democratic erosion, scholars have argued. In their view the attempt at a ban furthered the AKP’s belief that it needed to tame the judiciary. Today Turkey is no longer categorised as a free democracy. President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and the AKP, which he co-founded, have become increasingly authoritarian by consolidating power.
In Germany too, many believe it would be politically unwise to ban a party that recently received the support of almost a third of voters in the country’s east. If a ban was successful, AfD supporters could feel further alienated from the democratic process. Leading conservative politicians argue that the AfD must instead be fought politically. It is necessary to fight causes, not symptoms, the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) politician Thorsten Frei said. The AfD could “not be forbidden”, it could “only be governed away” added Alexander Dobrindt, chairman of the Christian Social Union (CSU) parliamentary group in the Bundestag.
If the proceedings drag on for years, this could also present the AfD with the opportunity to frame itself as the victim of “elites” who want to end free elections—narrative that could mobilise further support. Sahra Wagenknecht, a left-wing populist politician who quit the Left party to form an alliance named after herself, criticised the motion in October as the “stupidest…of the year”. Interests of voters had to be taken seriously, she argued, and a ban could not be used to “finish off” unwelcome rivals. She called a ban procedure “an election campaign gift” to the AfD.
“You shouldn’t let the fact that the AfD could play on its martyr narrative fool you,” Hailbronner counters. If there’s enough evidence to support a ban, Hailbronner argues, there is a political obligation to attempt it. Not trying could signal “a certain declaration of harmlessness”.
Some MPs are sceptical if there is sufficient proof that the entire party fulfils the legal requirements for a ban. Three elements must be present for a party to be banned in Germany: the party must be directed against the free democratic basic order, it must be large enough to pose a danger and the party must act with a planned and aggressive approach.
Many observers would not deny that the AfD is big enough to pose a threat to democracy. And the AfD’s critics argue that the nationalist-ethnic ideology of the party poses a danger to rights of minorities, and hence undermines human dignity—one of the three principles, along with the rule of law and democracy that form the core constitutional principles of the free democratic order, according to the German Constitutional Court. The constitution “does not allow for a differentiation between different kinds of German citizens with more or less rights, especially on the basis of racist categories,” Hailbronner says.
The challenge, for advocates of the ban, is to prove that the entire party, not just individuals within it, represents a danger to democracy. Hailbronner believes party manifestos and other official documents might not be enough to support a ban; the outcome may depend on how easily extremist, anti-democratic statements made by individual party members can be tied to the party.
In the end, a majority in parliament would only pave the way for the court to consider a ban. It would be up to the judges of the Constitutional Court in Germany to decide if there is evidence that the AfD has left constitutional ground. Wegge thinks that the evidence is there, and that it is vital to act soon to prevent the AfD from doing harm to liberal democracy—but admits that “failure in court would be fatal.” The AfD could use it as proof that it has been acting in accordance with the constitution all along. The question is, are MPs ready to send a message that Germany will defend its democracy—or is the risk too great?
