District council rejects AfD politician's objection after being excluded from the election

AfD member of the Bundestag Martin Sichert has failed in his appeal against his exclusion from the district elections in the Friesland district. A majority of the district council members rejected Sichert's election objections at the constituent meeting of the district council in Varel.

24 district council members voted for a corresponding resolution, ten district council members voted against it. There were also ten abstentions, as the chairman of the district council, Uwe Osterloh (SPD), said.

The draft resolution stipulated that Sichert's election objection was rejected as unfounded and also inadmissible - because it had not been raised in the correct form. Because of his exclusion, the AfD politician had requested that the district election be declared invalid and repeated.

Because of doubts about Sichert's loyalty to the constitution, the district election committee did not allow the AfD politician to take part in the district elections in July. This was preceded by an examination procedure in accordance with the Lower Saxony Local Elections Act, which also included a vote from the Ministry of the Interior with assessments by the Office for the Protection of the Constitution. The AfD in Lower Saxony is classified as definitely right-wing extremist by the Office for the Protection of the Constitution. The party is defending itself legally.

District councilor Bernd Niebuhr said before the vote on the election objection that the report from the Office for the Protection of the Constitution had been a basis for the decision. However, the district election committee made decisions “independently and independently,” emphasized Niebuhr. He also pointed out that Sichert had already failed before the Oldenburg Administrative Court with an urgent application to not be admitted to the district election.

In other municipalities in Lower Saxony, AfD applicants were also not admitted as candidates in local elections because of doubts about their loyalty to the constitution. This affected, for example, AfD state deputy Stephan Bothe from the district election in the Lüneburg district and state parliament member Thorsten Moriße as mayoral candidate in Wilhelmshaven.

Last week, the city council of Herzberg am Harz rejected the election objection of AfD politician Justin Vogel, who wanted to become mayor of the city in the Göttingen district.

After the local elections, the AfD announced that it wanted to challenge the exclusion of its candidates. After the election, AfD state deputy Stephan Bothe said that if the candidates' election objections were rejected, the party would take the matter to administrative courts.

In the case of the district election in Friesland, Sichet would have four weeks to file a lawsuit against the decision with the administrative court, according to the district, now that his election objection has been rejected.

Until a court decision is made, this will have no impact on the exercise of office by the elected district administrator, it said. The newly elected district administrator in Friesland is Rolf Neuhaus (SPD), he succeeds the long-time district administrator Sven Ambrosy (SPD), who no longer stood.