Germany's ruling coalition pushes to outlaw its biggest opposition party

By isabelle // 2026-09-30

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Germany's governing coalition is pushing to explore banning the right-wing AfD party by year's end
AfD now leads national polls at 29.5 percent, more than double the vote share of its leading challenger
Chancellor Friedrich Merz is skeptical of a ban, but a top official in his own party backs the review
AfD dismisses the push as an attack on voters and calls the effort desperate
AfD's rise now extends into western Germany, overtaking the chancellor's party in a major regional poll

The Social Democratic Party (SPD), the junior partner in Chancellor Friedrich Merz's governing coalition, is asking federal and state governments to form a working group that would determine whether there's a legal case for banning the Alternative for Germany (AfD) party. The move comes as AfD leads national polling by a wide margin and after the party posted commanding wins in two eastern state elections this month.

SPD wants a working group in place by year's end

SPD leaders from the Bundestag, the state legislatures and the European Parliament closed a two-day meeting in Bremen on Tuesday by again describing AfD as "right-wing extremist," accusing the party of undermining democracy from the inside and mainstreaming racist rhetoric. The SPD wants the working group established by the end of the year to assess whether grounds exist to bring a case before the Federal Constitutional Court, the only body with authority to outlaw a political party in Germany. The party has called the review both a legal obligation and a democratic one. Under German law, holding anti-constitutional views isn't enough to justify a ban; a party must be actively working to dismantle the democratic order and have a realistic shot at succeeding. Germany's domestic intelligence service already classifies AfD nationally as a suspected right-wing extremist group, but a Cologne court halted an effort in February to elevate that to a confirmed designation while litigation continues. Several of the party's state chapters already carry the stronger label.

AfD dismisses the effort as an assault on voters

AfD leaders have brushed off the extremism charge. Parliamentary leader Dirk Nockemann responded to a similar ban push underway in Hamburg by calling it an assault on democracy and on voters' choices and labeling the proposed working group a desperate maneuver. Co-leader Alice Weidel tied the ban talk to AfD's polling surge, accusing Merz's Christian Democratic Union (CDU) of clinging to what she called an "undemocratic firewall" — the refusal by Germany's mainstream parties to work with AfD in government. The party's platform, which includes stricter limits on immigration and opposition to German military and financial support for Kyiv, has gained traction as voters register frustration with Berlin's political mainstream. An INSA poll put AfD at 29.5%, more than double the SPD's 14.5% and ten points ahead of the CDU/CSU bloc's 19%. Combined, the two governing parties sit at just 33.5%, a narrow four-point edge over AfD alone.

Merz's own party is split over the strategy

Merz has been noticeably cool on the idea, calling the legal bar "very high" and arguing a ban wouldn't fix what's driving voters to AfD in the first place. But he doesn't speak for the whole CDU. North Rhine-Westphalia's Hendrik Wüst — a CDU heavyweight often mentioned as a future chancellor — has broken with Merz to back forming the working group himself, describing it as a required step before any court filing. "That could be a ban, that could also be something else," Wüst said, insisting the panel shouldn't be steered toward a predetermined result. The split matters because AfD's gains aren't confined to the east anymore. A Forsa poll in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany's most populous state and long a CDU stronghold, put AfD ahead of the CDU for the first time on the federal question, a reversal from just six months earlier. Merz's own approval in the state has collapsed to 11%, with a majority of CDU voters themselves saying they're dissatisfied with him.

The legal bar for banning a party remains steep

Germany has tried this before. A decade-old attempt to ban the far smaller, unambiguously neo-Nazi National Democratic Party failed to clear the constitutional court's bar, underscoring how difficult a case against a party now drawing nearly a third of the national vote would be. AfD's rise follows wins of 43.8% in Saxony-Anhalt and 38.2% in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, where the CDU failed to clear the 5% threshold needed to hold seats at all. That leaves Germany's political establishment with an uncomfortable question: whether moving against a party this popular still counts as defending democracy or starts to look like overruling the voters who keep choosing it. With roughly a third of the electorate now behind AfD, that question may prove harder to answer than the legal one the working group was set up to settle. Sources for this article include: RT.com ZeroHedge.com TheGatewayPundit.com Unherd.com