New classification of the AfD: Klingbeil: AfD politically “get small”

According to SPD boss Lars Klingbeil, a possible AfD ban proceedings cannot replace the political fight against the party. Klingbeil said the “Bild am Sonntag”: “What I don’t believe is that a possible ban procedure that could take years that could take for years, the sole instrument to get the AfD small. We have to be politically exhausted.” With another political style, the government must give people security and not stand out by arguments.

It became known on Friday that the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution classified the AfD as secured right -wing extremist. Since then, a possible procedure for the ban on the party has been discussed more intensively again. Thuringia’s Interior Minister Georg Maier (SPD) said the “Bild”: “The initiation of a prohibition procedure is the logical consequence of this decision and must now be tackled consistently next.”

“Evaluate the expert opinion quickly”

Klingbeil said on the subject of prohibition procedures: “This can be a possibility now. But I am not concerned with producing a quick headline.” The opinion of the Office for the Protection of the Constitution must now be evaluated quickly. “We have to make decisions very quickly in the new government, in the coalition, what follows,” said Klingbeil, the Vice Chancellor and Finance Minister in the Black-Red government under the new Chancellor Friedrich Merz (CDU). “It must not remain without consequences of what the protection of the constitution wrote to us in black and white.”

In a representative survey by the Institute Insa for the “Bild am Sonntag”, 48 percent of those surveyed are that the AfD is now being banned. 37 percent are against it, 15 percent do not know. In addition, 61 percent consider the AfD to be a right -wing extremist party, 31 percent do not do this, 8 percent do not know. Insa interviewed 1,001 people on Friday and Saturday.