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REUTERS
BERLIN
Some members of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party in Bavaria who are under surveillance for alleged links to extremist groups won seats in its parliamentary election at the weekend, the state's intelligence agency said.
An agency spokesman said on Thursday that the Bavarian domestic intelligence agency was checking whether it has a constitutional mandate to continue monitoring those individuals, who are now lawmakers in the state assembly.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel's coalition is divided over whether the federal intelligence agency should monitor the AfD, which entered the national parliament for the first time in an election last year after campaigning on an anti-Islam platform.
In Bavaria, the party - which says Islam is incompatible with the German constitution - secured 22 seats in the regional parliament based on a little over 10 percent of the vote. It drew some traditional voters from Merkel's conservative allies in the state, the Christian Social Union (CSU).
"Among the people under surveillance by the Bavarian domestic intelligence agency are individuals who won a mandate for the AfD in the election on Oct 14,"the Bavarian intelligence service spokesman wrote in an email.
He declined to say how many of the 22 AfD lawmakers are under surveillance. The AfD's leader in Bavaria did not respond to an email.
