Despite being the state’s most popular party and commanding a third of the electorate’s trust, the conservative, antiglobalist Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) in Saxony-Anhalt has been labeled “extremist” by Germany’s federal domestic intelligence agency, prompting accusations of a politically motivated witch hunt of the party’s leaders.
The Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV), which has exhibited a clear anti-AfD bias in the past, on the afternoon of Tuesday, November 7th, told the public broadcaster Mitteldeutscher Rundfunk (MDR) that it had classified Saxony-Anhalt’s regional branch of the AfD as an extremist outfit.
Saxony-Anhalt’s BfV chief, in comments given to the news outlet, said that the regional branch of the AfD is “certainly right-wing extremist.” The classification comes after the party was placed under surveillance in 2021.
“The result is clear: The regional association not only continues to represent anti-constitutional positions that led to it being classified as a suspected case, but has also become so radicalized since the Corona pandemic that systematic observation using intelligence means is justified,” Hollmann said.
In comments given to The European Conservative regarding the BfV’s classification of his party, AfD Saxony-Anhalt executive committee member Jan Wenzel Schmidt strongly contested the BfV’s evaluation and accused the intelligence agency of undermining democracy.
“Hardly does the AfD appoint the first mayor in Saxony-Anhalt and lead in polls as the strongest force ahead of the CDU, when Jochen Hollmann, who is close to the CDU, classifies it as a definite case of right-wing extremism,” Wenzel Schmidt began. “It is an obvious attempt to discredit the only real opposition. The instrumentalization of the Constitutional Protection Agency to combat the only true opposition is the real damage to democracy.”
AfD Bundestag member Petr Bystron echoed Wenzel Schmidt’s remarks, suggesting that the BfV, through its classification of Saxony-Anhalt AfD, is declaring a third of the state’s voters to be right-wing extremists.
Bystron told The European Conservative:
After such surveys, who is still surprised that the AfD in Saxony-Anhalt has now been classified as “certainly right-wing extremist” by the so-called Office for the Protection of the Constitution? Especially when you consider that the Ministry of the Interior there is run by the CDU.
Meanwhile, in the Netherlands, the so-called Integrity Investigation Board has proposed that MPs from the conservative, antiglobalist Forum for Democracy, Thierry Baudet, Frederik Jansen, and Gideon van Meijeren, be suspended from the parliament for not resigning from their management positions at the meal company Honest Food.
Responding to the board’s proposal, the FvD, in an official statement, wrote:
Let us make one thing very clear: Baudet, Jansen, and Van Meijeren comply with all legal obligations. They report their additional income to the tax authorities every year, and their compensation is automatically reduced if this additional income exceeds a certain limit. Everything they do is accessible to the general public through the Chamber of Commerce (the entire business operations of their secondary activities are public). Baudet, Jansen, and Van Meijeren, therefore, do not act contrary to the law in any way.
What they are accused of is that they do not comply with certain ‘rules’—which were devised by MPs of the cartel to limit opposition members. But these rules have no right to exist in the light of the Constitution.
Baudet, the party’s leader, said: “In principle, our representatives are only accountable to the voter—not to MPs of the cartel.”
