BERLIN, Germany – A year after surging into parliament, lawmakers from the far-right AfD party have upended the normally staid world of German politics, with provocations and insults now the order of the day in the venerable Bundestag. “The AfD is not considered a normal party, and in the Bundestag it doesn’t act like a normal party,” he told AFP. Setting the tone in the first parliamentary session, AfD parliamentary group chief Bernd Baumann said “a new era begins now”, and promptly sparked a row with an erroneous historical remark about notorious Nazi Hermann Goering. “Verbal provocations are certainly one of our characteristics,” AfD MP Rene Springer told AFP. Rounding on its critics, AfD MP Gottfried Curio recently described the party as the victim of “hatred and being hunted” by other parties.

Source: Philippine Daily Inquirer September 23, 2018 03:00 UTC