Boris Palmer calls for a new approach to the AfD before the state elections

In Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania there is a neck-and-neck race between the AfD and the SPD in the state elections next Sunday. There is great concern about a similar result to that in Saxony-Anhalt. Tübingen's non-party mayor Boris Palmer, a former member of the Green Party, is therefore calling for a different approach to the AfD. “We have to become capable of dialogue again,” demands the ex-Green politician in an interview with WELT TV.

Positions that are largely self-evident in Switzerland - such as the expectation that immigrants do not live permanently on state support and have to leave the country if serious crimes are committed - have been “taboo” for too long in this country. According to Palmer, those who represented such positions in Germany were often excluded. “You were put in the right corner if you said something like that,” he explains on WELT TV. At the same time, this did not lead to people abandoning their views. Rather, they just stopped saying it publicly: “So people preferred not to say anything and then voted for the AfD in the voting booth.”

Palmer is therefore calling for controversial positions to be discussed openly again. “I think we need to open up the debate space,” he says. Statements that are not anti-constitutional must first be accepted and discussed in terms of content. Opinions that you personally find intolerable should also be allowed. The aim must be to counter them “with the better argument”. For Palmer, his demand leads directly to the fundamental question of “which strategy we want to use in dealing with the AfD in the future”: “We just have to clarify that now.”

From Palmer's point of view, four different social and political strategies have been pursued so far in dealing with the AfD. The ex-Green Party politician considers two of them to have failed. This applies to the attempt to push back positions close to the AfD through a broad demarcation. “Fighting against the right, i.e. putting people in the right-wing corner, didn’t work; it actually made the AfD stronger,” he concludes.

The approach of not giving the AfD any public attention is also outdated. “Don’t give the AfD a stage, it’s over,” says Palmer. The reality of political television programs has long since caught up with this strategy: “All you have to do now is watch the talk shows, there are AfD politicians everywhere.” The party has already become far too strong to ignore the party and its positions, “that you can no longer keep quiet about them.” In addition, the AfD in Saxony-Anhalt now has a legitimate claim to government after the elections in Saxony-Anhalt.

For the established parties, there were only “two options left” as to how to deal with the AfD in the future: “either substantive dialogue, a dispute about the better argument, that’s what I’ve been advocating for a long time,” said Palmer. The non-party mayor expressly supports this approach. “I believe it is also the logical and right thing to do in a democracy.”

From Palmer's point of view, the only alternative to this is a ban on the AfD. If the proponents of such a procedure are convinced that they have sufficient arguments, they must follow this path consistently, explained Palmer: “If you are convinced that you have sufficient arguments for it, then you have to do it.” The most damaging thing, however, is to keep talking about a possible AfD ban without bringing about a decision, “because then of course the dialogue doesn’t work,” explains Palmer. A serious debate would be made more difficult if AfD supporters also assumed that the party that represented their views should be banned.

Palmer warns that if the AfD sticks to its current strategies in dealing with the party, it could continue to gain support and “at some point govern alone”. At the same time, he argues that participation in the government in Saxony-Anhalt could show whether the party is actually working to “override the principle of the rule of law and democracy.” In this case, “the route to Karlsruhe would no longer be that far.”