Today’s attempts to ban AfD represent something unprecedented: a governing elite attempting to eliminate its primary opposition to preserve its own power.
The messiness of party bans became crystal clear in Ludwigshafen’s mayoral election. When citizens of the German industrial town went to vote, they discovered their choice had been sanitized—the AfD candidate banned by the city council just weeks before polling day.
The democratic cost was stark: voter turnout plummeted to 29.3%, an all-time low in modern Germany. Over 9% of those who bothered to vote cast invalid ballots, many reportedly scrawling the banned candidate’s name onto their papers. The eventual winner will govern with the approval of barely 12% of the population.
Ludwigshafen offers a preview of what awaits Germany if the AfD is banned nationwide. Yet this hasn’t deterred the ban’s advocates. The governing SPD -polling at a dismal 15% – has confirmed its resolve to eliminate the AfD, which leads polls at 24%.
The choice facing Germany is stark: revitalize democratic competition or watch democracy itself become the casualty of elite self-preservation.