How to deal with the AfD? The Federal Greens bring a ban on the party into play. FDP faction leader Rülke thinks little of it.
Stuttgart (dpa / lsw) - Even after the anti-terror raid on so-called Reich citizens and individual AfD politicians, FDP parliamentary group leader Hans-Ulrich Rülke considers a ban on the AfD to be of little use. "The AfD would probably be set up again under a different name in a flash," said Rülke of the German Press Agency in Stuttgart. "The supporters of the AfD wouldn't be gone because of a ban. And it wouldn't be the case that the problems the AfD sucks honey from would go away either."
Rülke said that the AfD might even benefit from a ban "because it could say, 'Look, the government is now trying to stop political decision-making'." However, he advocated observing the AfD “to the full extent in accordance with the protection of the constitution”.
Green party leader Ricarda Lang recently said that a ban on the AfD shouldn't be taboo. "That has to be checked very carefully, because what we do see is that right-wing extremism has a parliamentary arm - and that's the AfD." There are good reasons for a ban on the matter: "There is a party that deeply despises this democracy - and ultimately this country as well. It is currently making itself the mouthpiece of Vladimir Putin."
Recently, 25 suspected "Reich citizens" were arrested. 22 of them are accused of being members of a terrorist organization that wanted to overthrow the political system. "Reich citizens" are people who do not recognize the Federal Republic and its democratic structures. Weapons were also seized during the raids. Birgit Malsack-Winkemann, a former member of the AfD Bundestag, was among those arrested.
The AfD is being observed by the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution and by the Office for the Protection of the Constitution in the south-west as a suspected case. In the Baden-Württemberg state parliament, the party is threatened with a shift to the right. After the resignation of parliamentary group leader Bernd Gögel, Emil Sänze wants to run as his successor in mid-January. While Gögel always had a relatively moderate and bourgeois-conservative image, Sänze was assigned to the völkisch-national camp.
For Rülke, Sänze is clearly an enemy of the constitution. Sänze said that the President of the Landtag, Muhterem Aras (Greens), was not allowed to comment on the culture of remembrance because her ancestors did not fight in German wars. "Someone who makes such racist statements is a racist for me. And racism is anti-constitutional."
