BERLIN, Sept. 20 (Xinhua) -- Federal Minister of the Interior Thomas de Maiziere disagreed with his CDU colleague and Chief of Staff of the German Chancellery Peter Altmaier, and called on all German citizens to go vote in the upcoming federal election on Sunday.
"No, everyone should make use of their suffrage and go to the polls," de Maiziere said Wednesday, when asked whether it would be better not to go to the polls instead of voting for the right wing populist AfD.
"I hope that the AfD won't receive many votes. In any case, one has to go and vote," the Interior Minister said in a video interview with German newspaper Bild.
"If you cannot make a decision at all, you should cast an invalid vote." He added that there was "in fact no excuse not to go to the election."
Altmaier advised dissatisfied citizens to rather not to cast one's ballot at the federal election than to vote for the AfD.
When asked in an interview with the Bild newspaper on Tuesday, whether a non-voter was preferable to voting for the AfD, he replied, "but of course. The AfD is dividing our country. It exploits the concerns and the fears of the population, which is why I believe that a vote for the AfD cannot be justified -- at least for me."
The AfD accused Altmaier of antidemocratic behavior.
"How can a government member make such a statement? This marks an absolute low point," Andre Poggenburg, member of the AfD's federal executive committee remarked.
Head of the SPD parliamentary fraction Thomas Oppermann also expressed his criticism of Altmaier's recommendation to rather not vote than support the right wing AfD, calling the move "wrong."
