By James Mackenzie
BERLIN, June 4 (Reuters) - The man Germany's far-right AfD hopes will become the party's first state premier took aim at the domestic intelligence service, which he accused on Thursday of being "politically directed" by the ruling conservatives to spy on political opponents.
Ulrich Siegmund, the AfD candidate in the eastern state of Saxony-Anhalt, said the agency, whose formal title is the Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV), was being "misused to crack down on the opposition
in this country".
"Our stated aim is to ensure that the Office for the Protection of the Constitution in Saxony-Anhalt returns to its core remit, rather than focusing on monitoring the opposition," he said, at a pre-election event in Magdeburg.
The September 6 state election in Saxony-Anhalt is set to be one of the most closely watched in Germany in years, and Siegmund's comments were the latest indication of brewing tensions over the security services, an area where state governments have wide-ranging powers.
The BfV reports to the interior ministry but is bound by law to be politically neutral and has authority only to monitor activity deemed to threaten Germany's constitutional order. The interior ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Siegmund's words regarding the BfV.
The local section of the AfD has been designated as "far-right extremist" by the Saxony-Anhalt office of the security service, a judgment its leaders see as part of a wider effort by the mainstream parties to discredit it.
According to the most recent BfV report, as well as holding "fundamentally racist" positions, the AfD in Saxony-Anhalt "seeks to bring the German democratic system, as well as its representatives and institutions, into disrepute."
"This is what I would call Orwellian Newspeak," said Martin Reichardt, the party's state chairman, accusing what he called "the establishment" of trying "to protect democracy, as it were, from the will of the voters."
COMMANDING LEAD
Siegmund, who has been criss-crossing the state for weeks holding "citizen dialogue" events in small towns that attract hundreds of potential voters, said the party saw Saxony-Anhalt as a first step towards winning power at national level.
"It's not just about Saxony-Anhalt for us; it's about Germany – we love Germany. That's why the blue wave must sweep across the whole country, starting from Saxony-Anhalt," he said, referring to the party's colour.
The AfD has built up a commanding lead over the ruling conservative Christian Democrats in the state and is aiming at an absolute majority that would guarantee the party its first-ever state premier.
For mainstream political parties like Chancellor Friedrich Merz's Christian Democrats, which have rejected cooperation with the AfD, a victory by the far-right party in Saxony-Anhalt would represent a major challenge to the constitutional order.
The security services have long identified far-right extremism as a potential threat to public order, along with others including Islamist and far-left violence.
"In my view, this is indeed a decisive election. It's a choice between centrist democracy and extremism," said Mario Karschunke, general secretary of the Christian Democrats in Saxony-Anhalt. "It is quite simply about democracy in the Federal Republic of Germany."
(Reporting by James Mackenzie; Additional reporting by Susanne Neumayer-Remter; Editing by Hugh Lawson)
