Merz called the attempts to ban AfD the elimination of political competitors

Attempts to ban the Alternative for Germany (AfD) party in Germany resemble the elimination of political competitors. This was announced on May 15 by the new German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, adding that he was skeptical about this idea.

"I have always been very skeptical about banning political parties. <...> People act "aggressively" against the free and democratic basic order. <...> In my opinion, this is too similar to the elimination of political competition," he said in an interview with Die Zeit newspaper.

As Merz added, only representatives of the executive branch can ban a particular party, since its illegal action must be carefully proved. He himself has always "internally resisted" the idea of a ban procedure from within the Bundestag.

In his opinion, the actions of the previous Government to review the report of the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution on the prohibition of AfG are causing great controversy. Merz noted that he is "not happy with the way this process is going," which looks like it will take several more weeks or months.

"The old government submitted a report without any factual analysis, which was also classified. I do not know the contents of this report and, frankly, I do not want to know it until the Interior Ministry gives its assessment based on it," the Chancellor said.

Merz faded: in Germany, for the first time in history, the first round of the election of the chancellor failed

It was decided to hold a repeat vote on the same day.

On May 2, the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution of Germany classified the AFD as a right-wing extremist organization that threatens democracy in the country. On May 5, the party filed a lawsuit against this federal agency for this decision. The Bild newspaper reported on May 8 that counterintelligence had temporarily suspended the definition of the party as right-wing extremist pending a court decision.

On May 11, several thousand people took part in a demonstration in Berlin to ban the Alternative for Germany party, and similar actions were held in more than 60 other German cities.