District Council Rejects AfD Politician’s Appeal Over Election Exclusion

The district council of Friesland in Lower Saxony has rejected an appeal filed by Alternative for Germany (AfD) member of parliament Martin Sichert against his exclusion from the district administrator election. At a constitutive session in Varel, 24 members of the council voted to dismiss Sichert's objection as unfounded and formally invalid, while 10 voted against the dismissal and 10 abstained, according to council chairman Uwe Osterloh of the Social Democratic Party (SPD).

Sichert had requested that the council declare the election invalid and order a re-run following his removal from the ballot. SPD politician Rolf Neuhaus won the district administrator race. Under administrative rules, Sichert has four weeks to file a lawsuit with an administrative court against the council’s decision, though local officials confirmed to news agency dpa that any legal proceedings will not affect Neuhaus's tenure during his term.

The decision to disqualify the AfD politician rested on a statutory amendment adopted earlier this year by Lower Saxony’s SPD and Green coalition government. The amended Section 45d, Paragraph 7 of the Lower Saxony Municipal Election Act introduced a vetting process when doubts arise regarding a candidate's loyalty to the constitution in local executive elections. Under the rule, an election committee can request a review by municipal supervisory authorities, which may draw on domestic intelligence findings.

Initial grounds for Sichert’s exclusion relied primarily on his membership in AfD Lower Saxony, according to documentation from the district returning office confirmed by deputy returning officer Andrea Jeske. Additional material was subsequently submitted to the election committee by the SPD-led state Interior Ministry. Sichert’s appeal explicitly questioned whether local election committees possess the legal standing to bar candidates based on doubts over constitutional loyalty.

The ministry's submission highlighted social media posts in which Sichert criticized rainbow flags using comparisons to National Socialism, expressed criticism of Islam, and used political terms including system party, cartel party, and block party. During committee proceedings, election committee head Bernd Niebuhr repeatedly cited the state ministry's guidance rather than evaluating the substantive allegations directly, initially referring to the ministry's input as the decision of the state before correcting his statement to describe it as a proposal.

Written by Andreas Hofer andreas.hofer@alpineweekly.com