Germany's one-party system

The time to stand up against the banning of the AfD and for the democratic rights of German voters is now.

19 August 2023, Lower Saxony, Celle: Delegates and visitors arrive at the state party conference of the AfD Lower Saxony in the Congress Union Celle. The Alternative for Germany is meeting this weekend in Celle for a state party conference. Photo: Julian Stratenschulte/dpa (Photo by JULIAN STRATENSCHULTE / DPA / dpa Picture-Alliance via AFP) Fotó: AFP/JULIAN STRATENSCHULTE

So far, there have only been veiled intimations and threats, but increasingly, the desire to ban the only opposition party, the Alternative fur Deutschland (AfD), is beginning to surface in German political discourse. This is no misprint, for if a political party like the CDU is not in government, it can formally be called an opposition, but in Germany's case, that would be a smoke screen. The Alternative for Germany is the only real opposition party that doesn't play the same pro-migrant, climate change hysteria and European superstate tune as all the others.
German President Frank Walter Steinmeier (SPD) recently said that "we all have the opportunity to put in their place those who despise our democracy", essentially giving his presidential blessing to the drive against the right-wing German party. The co-chair of the governing SPD party, Saskia Esken, also joined in this particular democracy model of banning the opposition by noting that if the German security services succeeded in categorising the AfD as a right-wing extremist group, then a banning of the party must be considered.

Her wish seems to have fallen on hearing ears, with Thomas Haldenwang, head of the German security service (BfV), saying, "Several AfD members are spreading hatred against all kinds of minorities." Of course, the German press also did their part in the anti-AfD witch hunt.

Der Spiegel, the most vile of the outlets that gave the term Lugenpresse [lying press] its name, demanded in banner headlines: "Ban the enemies of the constitution". Needless to say, they were not talking about some extreme Islamist group, but about the German party, which currently enjoys over twenty percent popularity.

In April this year, the AfD's youth organisation, the Young Alternatives, was officially declared an extremist organisation by Haldenwang's BfV, and the parent party itself has been under Bundestag-approved active surveillance by the secret services from 2021. Ordinary German citizens themselves are split even at 47 percent for and 47 against the banning of the right-wing party. The remaining six percent probably also have an opinion on the matter but simply did not understand the question being asked in German.

It is alarming how Germany's democracy has sunk to this level, that a moderate party that argues against immigration in a sensible way within the constitutional framework, pointing out the difficulties caused by the Islamization of Germany and the emergence of parallel societies, is now being declared extremist. President Steinmeier wants to fight for the constitution and democracy by banning a party that would have been difficult to distinguish from the pre-Merkel CDU in terms of its political radicalism. And the once conservative CDU just keeps silent, powerlessly scratching their heads that this might be counterproductive and would only bring more vote for AfD. Counterproductive, they say? Not totalitarian, anti-democratic, unconstitutional or repressive?
 

All this incitement recently paid off when a group of "New Germans" attacked Andreas Jurca, the leader of Augsburg's AfD . The migrants knew exactly who they were assaulting, calling the local politician a Nazi while beating him bloody. Oh the irony! Not a peep about it in the Lugenpress, the hunting season for those defending national interests has obviously begun without any restrictions, and the violent migrant gangs will be used by the German "democrats" to pursue them. President Steinmeier did not, of course, condemn the attack, or say that the perpetrators of political violence need to be "put in their place" this time, especially if they have a migrant background. It seems that in Germany, those who value the national interest have only two options: having their heads bashed in by either the far-left antifascists or the radical Islamists, who also enjoy supremacy over the law.

Hungarian conservative forces should finally give up the dream still lingering among them that the CDU will return to its old Christian conservative identity and become our ally in the fight for European values. It will not. Their leader, Friedrich Merz, is a textbook example of someone who grazes his cow on the conservative pastures and milks it on the liberal side. He is one of an endless line of opportunistic liberal sheep dressed in right-wing wolf's skin, even if he does not bleat against national forces as loudly as his Green or Red counterparts.

If the AfD is banned, Germany will become an unadulterated single-party dictatorship, in which pluralism of opinion and freedom of conscience will completely disappear. What kind of election is it, where voters can only choose from the palette of political forces that support nation-killing, population exchange and climate crisis extremism? In such a country, elections become completely superfluous, and the political discourse is only about who can outbid one extreme initiative with an even more destructive one.

Looking at the kind and respectable German pensioners who are buying up Hungary's Lake Balaton waterfront properties reminds me of one of our government's political principles: help the troubled in their own countries and do not bring their troubles here. The time to stand up against the banning of AfD and for the democratic rights of German voters is now, before a stream of refugees from the West, like that on our eastern borders, starts to build up. And this should not be understood metaphorically, or as sarcasm, but in a very concrete sense.

The author is editor-in-chief of Hungary Today

Cover photo: Illustration (Photo: AFP)