Overview

• On August 5 the Ludwigshafen election committee voted to exclude Paul from the September 21 ballot, citing “Zweifel an seiner Verfassungstreue” based on a security-service report.
• Paul filed for an interim injunction at the Verwaltungsgericht Neustadt an der Weinstraße to overturn his disqualification and regain ballot access.
• Critics have described the report’s 16 allegations—ranging from references to Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings to the Nibelungenlied—as legally insubstantial and unlikely to hold up in court.
• Tübingen mayor Boris Palmer and other observers condemned the exclusion as political overreach and warned it highlights double standards in applying constitutional vetting.
• German law permits candidate bans only for clear rejections of the democratic order, and the pending court decision will test those strict judicial standards.