The former German president (2012-2017) Joachim Gauck spoke out against the ban on the right-wing party "Alternative for Germany". (AfD). He expressed this point of view in an interview with the media group Funke.
„No, not at all,” Gauck said when asked if he supported banning the party. “As a Democrat who values an open society, it is very disappointing that we have to allocate resources to the party through government funding. But in politics you cannot act only on the basis of emotions”, he added.
At the same time, the former German president is convinced that the AfD ban will not cause the electorate to turn against the party. “Rather, we will cause even more anger and even more radicalism – and it will cause political damage,”, Gauck said. Insecure conservative citizens who voted for the AfD would see the state as an enemy if the party were banned, he said. “Therefore, we must rely less on government intervention and instead strengthen our ability to protect democracy,” concluded Gauck.
Earlier, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz reacted with restraint to the idea of banning the AfD, noting that the issue was not on the agenda.
On September 29, Die Welt newspaper, citing sources, reported that the Bundestag (German parliament) will soon hold a vote on a cross-faction group's request that Germany's Federal Constitutional Court should consider the AfD ban. According to the publication, this proposal is supported by individual MPs from the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD), the Greens, the opposition conservative bloc of the Christian Democratic and Christian Social Union (CDU/CSU) and the Left Party, but not all factions fully. The preparation of the request was carried out by 40 members of the Bundestag over several months and was completed on September 27.
In the country AfD is called a right-wing populist party. Other political forces consider it impossible to cooperate with it within the framework of any coalition - neither at the federal nor at the regional level. At the same time, according to the latest public opinion polls, AfD's rating is at the level of 19-20%: if parliamentary elections are held in the country in the near future, the party will take second place in them after the conservative CDU/CSU bloc. In three federal states, the activities of the AfD are recognized as right-wing extremist. In the Thuringian Landtag elections held on 1 September, the AfD won with 32.8% of the vote and for the first time in its history took first place in a regional election in Germany.