The former Brandenburg AfD country chief Andreas Kalbitz temporarily suspends his office as parliamentary group leader. First of all, a first legal clarification should be awaited by the Berlin Regional Court, Kalbitz said after an almost four-hour special session in the state parliament. The faction had unanimously accepted his offer.
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Kalbitz could also have remained as a non-party leader, because the parliamentary group had already changed its rules of procedure accordingly after the annulment of his party membership by the federal executive committee. The Federal Arbitration Court of the AfD had confirmed the cancellation because Kalbitz had concealed his former membership with the Republicans and in the now banned right-wing extremist German youth (HDJ).
Kalbitz denies HDJ membership. In a report by the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution, however, it is given for a “Andreas Kalbitz family” under the number “01330”. Kalbitz goes against the legal cancellation of his party membership.
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The Brandenburg AfD state association is observed by the State Office for the Protection of the Constitution as a suspected case of right-wing extremism. Kalbitz, together with the Thuringian AfD state and parliamentary group leader Björn Höcke, was one of the spokesmen for the now officially disbanded völkisch-nationalist “wing”. The Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution classifies the current as a “secured right-wing extremist aspiration” and Höcke and Kalbitz as “right-wing extremist leaders”.
The Brandenburger vice faction leader Steffen Kubitzki had said after the confirmation of the cancellation of Kalbitz ‘AfD membership by the Federal Arbitration Court that the consequences had to be discussed so that the party would not be further harmed.
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Kalbitz was accompanied by the honorary chairman and head of the parliamentary group, Alexander Gauland, to the crucial special meeting of the Brandenburg AfD parliamentary group. After Gauland’s move to the Bundestag in 2017, Kalbitz took over its top offices in Brandenburg.
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