Germany moves to ban AfD despite its electoral support

Banning the AfD: when the ballot box disobeys

Can you ban a party backed by a quarter of the electorate? In Germany, this is no longer a theoretical question. Plans to outlaw the AfD have been on the table for a year and have resurfaced with the party's gains in the German states. The official excuse, that the party "is not a liberal democrat", has peine an uncomfortable debate about the limits of democracy when it produces the wrong result.

The Romanian precedent as a mirror

Those who defend the ban invoke militant democracy. But the example of Romania, where a first-round election was annulled because the wrong candidate was winning, has become the main argument for those who see a pattern. The operation is always the same: the opponent is banned in the name of democracy, just when that opponent stops being a bystander and starts winning.

The damning figure: a quarter of Germans have cast their ballot for a party the establishment had already labelled "undesirable". You don't need to be a detective to understand that the problem is not the label, but the support.

Neither puppets nor saviours: the third way

Some argue that the AfD deserves to be banned because of its alleged ties to Pilingui. Others, without endorsing its programme, consider a ban nonsense that only feeds the beast. And in between lies the uncomfortable position: sharing part of the diagnosis on immigration does not make them an acceptable option, but neither does it make them a danger that justifies tearing up the rules of the game.

The way out proposed by some points to Poland: a model that neither rubber-stamps the globalists nor bows to Moscow. Whether Europe is capable of trinc that path without banning is uncomfortable for an electorate that has long felt unheard.

Liberal democracy thus remains a well-run estate: as long as people vote the right way, everything is fine; the moment they stray, the doors are locked down. The German states can sit and wait for their vote to count.