German Establishment Parties Plan Law Change To Prevent True Democracy

The message to German voters in the past decades has been that elections might bring changes in government, but few, if any, in power relations and policy. Over the past years, a hard front of establishment parties and politicians has invested considerable energy in policing the boundaries of what can be demanded, or even debated: whether in relation to net-zero, energy politics, social security, migration, the EU, or much else besides.

As the old tactics for keeping populists at bay—the cordon sanitaire, restrictions on speech—prove insufficient, the question becomes: What will the establishment do now? How far will it go? With the upcoming September elections in the eastern state of Saxony-Anhalt, the question has taken on a new urgency—and the response, for those who see democracy in its traditional meaning as the rule of the people, is disturbing.

Though one of Germany’s smallest Länder (federal states), with just over 2 million inhabitants, Saxony-Anhalt has moved into the centre of attention. It is here that the firewall tactic may first collapse: the AfD is polling so strongly that no government could plausibly be formed without it. The party leads with around 38% of the vote, while the ruling CDU, facing massive losses, trails at around 25%. Other parties—the Greens and Social Democrats—are expected to either fail or barely clear the 5% threshold. Unlike in Thuringia, where the AfD won a majority in 2024 but was neutralised by a broad coalition (including the Left Party and the CDU), nothing may stop the AfD from taking power this time.

“Germany’s democracy is defensive” has been the slogan to which sections of the establishment have resorted for years. Its militantly anti-democratic message is now present in Saxony-Anhalt too: for the first time in post-war German history, a state parliament is set to pass a series of laws in direct response to its fear of the opposition coming to power.

The new legal package, introduced by all the cordon-sanitaire parties (CDU, the Left, SPD, FDP, and Greens) in March, is called “Parliamentary Reform.” Its aim, as one legal expert explains, is to make legislative proposals difficult and constitutional amendments virtually impossible. It will affect the state’s constitution, the rules of procedure of parliament, the law on members of parliament, and regulations on the state constitutional court. Its proposals include:

1) The provision that it is no longer necessary for the strongest parliamentary group to nominate the president of parliament—other parties may also nominate a joint candidate.

2) Judges may in future be nominated by the state constitutional court itself, rather than necessarily by parliament; a simple majority in parliament will then suffice for approval.

3) Stricter transparency requirements for parliamentary staff, including a ban on employing family members.

4) State treaties (such as those concerning public broadcasting) will no longer be concluded solely by the elected minister-president but will require parliamentary approval.

It is typical of the twisted logic of ‘defensive’—or ‘militant’—democracy that the proposed changes are being justified by the claim of wanting to “strengthen democracy.” The AfD, the joint cordon-sanitaire coalition argues, cannot be trusted because it is not a normal party but an “enemy of the system” (Systemfeind). The common argument is that though the AfD has promised to respect law and order, the state’s core institutions need to be shielded from its potentially destructive influence once it attains power. By extension, those 37–40% who are expected to vote for the AfD are seen as either too stupid to notice the danger the party poses or as enemies of the system themselves: defensive democracy means protecting democracy from the voters.

With a lack of principles and a total failure to address or inspire voters, protecting the establishment’s favoured institutions seems the only option left.

Legal experts have assured us that the measures, viewed individually and outside their political context—which is, of course, crucial—do not violate the rule of law. They have also pointed to some of the measures responding to a genuine scandal. The ban on employing family members stems from allegations that AfD politicians placed family members on the payrolls of colleagues’ parliamentary offices. (The lead AfD candidate, Ulrich Siegmund, is implicated: his father was employed in the Bundestag office of another AfD politician.) But even here, the defensiveness of the establishment is palpable: the original hope was that the scandal would turn voters away from the AfD—a hope that itself reveals how little the establishment understands the depth of popular anger.

But the legalistic argument obscures something far more serious. With this legal package to make their state and its institutions ‘AfD-proof,’ Saxony-Anhalt’s mainstream parties expose their ignorance of—or contempt for—one of the key principles of democracy: that elections define political power; that elected governments have the right, and even the duty, to act on the will of the voters; and that institutions which no longer command public support can, and must, be changed. For them, preserving institutions matters more than respecting democracy and the will of the people.

Voters shouldn’t—and probably won’t—be fooled. This election is not about whether fascism is to be reintroduced in Germany. No one has called to abolish courts, trade unions, political parties, and every independent newspaper, as the Nazis did 90 years ago. But the AfD is willing and ready to shake up some of the establishment’s favoured institutions.

On the established side, the mere announcement of plans to change things has caused alarm. “They speak reverently of ‘Vision 2026’ and want to achieve something historic for their party,” declares one outraged ARD commentator. Every pro-establishment voice seems to find something uniquely shocking: the AfD’s opposition to ‘rainbow ideology’ and its call for a ban on hormone therapy for minors; the pledge to provide state funding only to cultural institutions showing a “credible commitment to the democratic order and a patriotic attitude”; the plan to review school textbooks, tighten educational standards, and legalise homeschooling. Parroting the language of post-fascism, one commentator writes that “no one can claim not to have known what will happen if the AfD rules.” Others have zeroed in on the use of the word “remigration,” the proposal to house asylum seekers only in centralised facilities outside city centres, and the abolition of cash support.

But most energy has been spent attacking the AfD’s plans to defund state anti-racism programmes, abolish bodies such as the State Agency for Political Education and the State Energy Agency—and above all, its assault on Germany’s public broadcasting system, which the AfD regards as the mouthpiece of the “green-left mainstream.”

Of course, there is plenty that can be criticised—such as the AfD’s attacks on Bauhaus architecture (the “Bauhaus city” Dessau is in Saxony-Anhalt), which one of its members has described as “an aberration of modernity.” But there is also much that is grounded and sensible, such as the criticism of an elite’s warped approach to gender ideology. Some aspects echo old liberal demands, such as the relaxation of Germany’s overly restrictive laws on homeschooling. And some concerns go far beyond AfD voters, such as the criticism of an overly expensive and politically biased public broadcasting service.

The effort to AfD-proof Saxony-Anhalt is only the latest in a series of measures taken over recent months and years to weaken and marginalise the populists. It follows calls to ban the party outright—a proposal still on the table—and the exclusion of AfD candidates from local elections, as happened in Ludwigshafen last year, where their mayoral candidate was barred from standing.

It was the great democrat Thomas Paine who, in his Rights of Man, wrote that governments derive their authority from the people. A government that loses this authority can only sustain itself through ever more authoritarian means.