The German chancellor, Olaf Scholz, has urged mainstream parties not to lend support to the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, which won a big victory in the eastern state of Thuringia in Sunday’s regional election.
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The AfD has been designated as right-wing extremist in both Thuringia and Saxony. Björn Höcke, the AfD leader in Thuringia, has previously been fined for using a Nazi slogan, although he denies knowingly doing so.
On Monday, Mr Scholz urged other parties to block the AfD from governing by maintaining a so-called firewall against it.
What happened to all that talk about potentially banning the party, etc?
Now the rhetoric is ‘we need to contain the nazis’ rather than ‘we need to eliminate the nazis’.
The courts decide if a party can be banned the government can only initiate the process, also most experts on constitutional law seem to be of the opinion that a ban for the whole party is unlikely and even if it succeeded the would just be a replacement party stepping in to fill the void.