Erfurt (dpa/th) - It is currently unclear when the SPD will decide whether to initiate party proceedings against two of its city councilors in Hildburghausen. The reason is that the two voted together with the AfD for a voting procedure against the Hildburghausen mayor Tilo Kummer (left).
SPD state manager Anja Zachow said on Monday when asked in Erfurt that it was not yet certain whether the application for a party order procedure, which was submitted by several SPD members, would already be dealt with in the board meeting on January 12 or later. She confirmed that the motion for a party trial had been filed against the two men. The behavior of the city councilors caused criticism not only in the SPD. In Thuringia, the AfD is being monitored by the Office for the Protection of the Constitution because of right-wing extremist tendencies.
"The discussion about a party order procedure is now getting going," said Zachow. The SPD chairman and Interior Minister Georg Maier had criticized the behavior of the SPD city councillors, but initially wanted to seek internal discussion.
"Especially in Thuringia, with extremely high election results for the AfD, the dam bursting on February 5, 2020, a large number of right-wing rock concerts and an extensive network of right-wing structures, it is clear to us as the Social Democratic Party that there must be no form of cooperation with right-wing extremists - neither in the state nor at the municipal level," says the letter to the state executive.
The application for a party order procedure was submitted, among others, by the SPD state parliament members Diana Lehmann and Denny Möller and the East Thuringian member of the Bundestag Elisabeth Kaiser. Lehmann said it was intended for the board meeting on January 12. According to her, a third SPD city councilor who had voted with the AfD left the party shortly after the incident.
A party order procedure is conducted by the internal party arbitration board. It is about party penalties such as the resignation of offices up to the party expulsion.
