The AfD is already abusing democracy

#46

Salute,

There is no “The Story” today, just a short story about my encounters with the Alternative for Germany (AfD), which has been on the rise here in Germany, although it is partly right-wing extremist. 

I have been a listener to three German parliaments recently. I was at the state parliament in Stuttgart, then at the Bundestag in Berlin, and today, on the local level, at the Pankow District Council (Bezirksverordnetenversammlung, short: BVV).

In all three parliamentary sessions, the AfD abused the rules of democratic coexistence to disrupt the parliamentary process.

Particularly popular: requiring such types of votes that take extra long. For example, by demanding secret ballots. 

In the Pankow District Council, the members can vote electronically. So, a vote takes no more than a minute or two. But if voting is carried out by secret ballot, voting booths must be set up, and ballot papers must be distributed. Such a ballot takes more than half an hour. - And there are about 30 ballots that evening (not all secret, though). 

And once the vote is over, the ballot papers have been read, and the result has been announced, then the AfD demands that the election be repeated. And so the process starts again.

It happened like this on all three of my visits to different German parliaments.

And that's why I ask myself (and from now on, every AfD sympathizer): With the AfD party, with currently little power in German parliaments, already disrupting democracy wherever it can, what on earth should make me think that if the party is powerful enough, it won't try to end democracy?

✊,

Johannes Eber