Minister of Justice: AfD has launched a frontal attack on the fundamental values of our constitution

The electoral program of the right-wing populist Alternative for Germany (AfD) is, according to Federal Minister of Justice Heiko Maas (Social Democratic Party of Germany SPD), inconsistent with the German constitution in several points.

– AfD has launched a frontal attack on the fundamental values of our constitution, Maas said in a guest commentary published in the Frankfurter Rundschau newspaper on Monday.

He pointed out several points from the AfD’s electoral program that he believes are contrary to the constitution. The parts of the AfD program that relate to general bans on the construction of mosques and minarets, the goal of leaving the European Union, as well as AfD’s ideas on birth rates, are difficult to reconcile with the Constitution. These ideas, in Maas’s opinion, contradict the constitutionally guaranteed freedom of religion, political orientation towards European integration, and the right to freely choose a way of life.

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Maas asserted that on September 24, it could happen that for the first time since 1949, when the Communist Party of Germany entered the Bundestag with a program that contradicted the Constitution in many parts and was banned in 1956, a party that is not in accordance with the constitution could again enter parliament.

– In the next elections, a party whose program parts contradict the constitution could again cross the electoral threshold, Maas said.

The electoral threshold in Germany is 5 percent, and the AfD is far above that limit in all public opinion polls. According to the latest public opinion polls, the AfD could become the third strongest political party in Germany with 9 to 11 percent of the votes, behind the CDU/CSU Union with 37 to 39 percent and the SPD with 21 to 23 percent.

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At the same time, Maas criticized in an interview with the public service Deutschlandfunk the changing of some rules in the Bundestag aimed at reducing the influence of the AfD after its entry into parliament. One of those rules is the custom whereby the oldest member of parliament, who will likely become AfD leader Alexander Gauland, opens the first session of parliament in the electoral period and becomes the honorary president of the Bundestag.

– I do not consider it correct to change the rules just to diminish the weight of the AfD. If the AfD enters parliament, then that is part of our political reality, and we must accept it, Maas said, who believes that changes to the rules aimed at isolating the AfD would be used by this party to portray itself as a ‘victim’.