AfD on democracy and the state

The AfD wants to allow nationwide referendums modeled on Switzerland. Citizens should be able to amend or reject laws passed by parliament, pass their own laws, and decide on constitutional amendments and major international treaties.

The AfD wants referendums for all of Germany. Switzerland is the model. Citizens should be able to change or reject laws. They should also be able to propose and pass laws themselves. Citizens should also vote on changes to the constitution.

The party wants to create the legal basis for the votes mentioned in Article 20 of the Basic Law, Germany's constitution. Constitutional amendments and significant international treaties would require citizens' approval. Citizens could also initiate constitutional amendments, as long as Article 79(3) of the Basic Law does not rule them out. The platform names independent opinion-forming, rights to information, and broad public debate as preconditions. The AfD argues that citizens decide fundamental questions with more foresight than career politicians, and wants the issue to be central to any coalition talks.

The AfD wants to abolish state rules on removing online statements, which it calls censorship, and to require large social networks to respect their users' freedom of expression. It also wants to end the special criminal-law protection of politicians against insult.

The AfD wants to end rules on deleting posts on the internet. It calls these rules censorship. Large social networks should have to respect free speech. Politicians should no longer get special protection against insults. Parties should not be allowed to own shares in media companies.

The platform would scrap state regulations and state-prompted arrangements with companies that the AfD regards as censorship. "Fact-checkers" should receive no public money. The party considers action against so-called hate speech impermissible where it goes beyond the criminal law's protection of personal honor. Section 188 of the Criminal Code, which gives special protection to people in political life, would be repealed so that politicians and citizens are treated alike. Parties would be barred from holding stakes in media companies; the AfD also rejects government influence on private media through subsidies and advertising.

The AfD wants to bar members of parliament from serving in a government at the same time. Parliamentary state secretaries and political civil servants would be abolished, and the Federal President would be elected directly by the people.

Members of parliament should not be in the government at the same time. The AfD wants to abolish parliamentary state secretaries. These are lawmakers who assist ministers. Political civil servants should also go. Citizens should elect the Federal President themselves.

The platform argues that the separation of powers has been hollowed out in today's party state and that power lies with party headquarters. Separating a parliamentary seat from government office is meant to counter this. Besides parliamentary state secretaries, so-called political civil servants would also be eliminated; the platform cites the range from ministerial director to police chief. The Federal President is currently elected by the Federal Convention; the AfD wants a direct popular vote instead.

The AfD wants to introduce open-list voting for Bundestag elections, letting voters give candidates multiple votes or strike them out. Mail-in voting would be allowed only in justified exceptional cases. The party rejects a voting age below 18, a longer legislative term, and quotas.

The AfD wants to change election law. Voters should be able to boost or strike out single people on party lists. Voting by mail should need a reason. The voting age should stay at 18. Parliament should be able to hold secret votes.

According to the platform, fixed lists mean that party leaderships effectively decide who enters parliament; open lists are meant to hand that choice to voters. Secret votes in parliament are meant to strengthen lawmakers' independence from party and caucus. Parliamentary presiding bodies would be appointed by the caucuses rather than elected, which the AfD justifies as equal treatment of all caucuses. It rejects quotas by sex or other traits as well as a longer legislative term. The party also opposes direct influence by NGOs and citizens' assemblies on state decision-making.

The AfD wants to abolish state-funded party-affiliated foundations and have audit offices review decisions that parties make in their own interest. Public offices should be filled solely on aptitude and merit, without regard to party membership and without quotas.

Party-affiliated foundations get money from the state. The AfD wants to abolish them. Audit offices should check what parties decide for themselves. People should get state jobs only based on skill. Party membership should play no role.

According to the platform, party-affiliated foundations together received 659 million euros in 2024, more than three times annual party funding; the AfD wants to cut that sum sharply and abolish the foundations in the long run. It also objects that the Desiderius Erasmus Foundation, which is close to the AfD, receives no money. Lawmakers' pay and the funding of caucuses and parties would be subject to unrestricted audit and made public. Rules on party donations would be tightened to prevent corruption. Public offices, civil service and judicial posts, and management positions in publicly controlled companies would be filled only on professional qualification.

The AfD wants to limit the chancellor to three legislative terms and members of parliament to a combined total of four. It bases this on its ideal of the citizen-legislator and sees career politics as a cause of cronyism and lobbying.

The AfD wants to limit time in politics. A chancellor should serve three terms at most. Lawmakers should serve four terms at most. The AfD says politics should not be a job for life.

The four-term cap for lawmakers would count time in the EU Parliament, the Bundestag and state parliaments together. The chancellor would be limited to three terms. According to the program, career politics has concentrated power and widened the gap between voters and those they elect, which encourages nepotism and corruption. The AfD also criticizes that lobbying is now anchored in EU law and works through private donations to the WHO, while it considers expert advice to lawmakers legitimate.

The AfD wants to stop political parties from having a say in appointing judges and prosecutors. Prosecutors would no longer be bound by instructions from justice ministries, and the judiciary would govern itself.

The AfD wants parties to have no say in choosing judges. The same goes for prosecutors. Ministers should no longer give orders to prosecutors. The courts should run themselves.

The program backs a model by the Deutscher Richterbund (German Association of Judges) that would set up a judicial selection committee. Posts would be filled based on specific professional qualifications, which is meant above all to shield constitutional courts from party influence. The ministries' power to instruct prosecutors would be abolished. As justification, the program says judicial self-government is common in many European countries.

The AfD wants to overhaul the Verfassungsschutz (domestic intelligence service) from the ground up. In its view, the agency now protects the government and no longer fulfills its original tasks. Until the reform, all parliamentary groups should take part in overseeing it.

The AfD wants to change the Verfassungsschutz a lot. That is Germany's domestic spy agency. The AfD thinks it now protects the government. Until the change, every group in parliament should help oversee it.

The program calls the agency a "government protection" service. It assigns counterterrorism and protection against espionage and sabotage to the Bundesnachrichtendienst (federal intelligence service) and the police. Until a reform takes place, every parliamentary group represented in parliament should be able to take part in overseeing the service.

The AfD wants to revise the Hinweisgeberschutzgesetz (Whistleblower Protection Act) so that it also covers cases where the state fails or government bodies act unlawfully. It argues that legal violations by state bodies often come to light only through whistleblowers and alternative media.

Some people report mistakes and wrongdoing. They are called whistleblowers. A law protects them. The AfD wants to change this law. It should also apply when the state does wrong.

The law to be changed dates from July 2, 2023. According to the program, the government and state institutions broke the law on a large scale during the COVID period and in migration policy. In the AfD's view, the media fail as a check on power and committees of inquiry are often refused. As examples of disclosures, the program cites the RKI protocols, an Interior Ministry paper on COVID crisis management, and a Hamburg tax official in the Warburg cum-ex case.