Christian Lindner asks questions about the AfD’s success in Thuringia – and makes an indirect recommendation for voting. There is also “populist social policy” on the left.
Weimar – Thuringia is politically a special case of the Federal Republic: On the one hand, after several antics, a minority government led by the Left Party rules in the state parliament, on the other hand the AfD won a district election for the first time in Sonneberg, Thuringia, on Sunday. An election that once again shakes the political balance of power on the ground – and whose echo also concerns other parties. This is how the FDP boss saw himself Christian Lindner confronted with questions about the AfD high at a citizens’ meeting on Monday evening.
Lindner on the AfD: “In an emergency, you could still choose the Left Party”
Actually, the finance minister didn’t really want to talk about them that much AfD speak. “I don’t want to constantly be outraged by that party, that only gives them energy.” Instead, one has to deal with the “real problems”. Specifically, Lindner called loudly World the areas of migration and identity politics. The impression should not be given that there is only the “value cosmos of Berlin-Mitte”.
A citizen asked if Lindner could even imagine what it was like to live at subsistence level. The FDP-Chairman first listed a number of socio-political traffic light measures such as housing benefit reform and child benefit adjustment – and then named the Left Party as a socio-political alternative to the AfD: “It hurts my soul to say it, but in an emergency you could still choose the Left Party .”
It was not an election recommendation, as Lindner was later to write on Twitter. “Nobody has to vote for AfD if they want populist social policy. There are also those on the left.”
AfD strongest force in East Germany
In recent polls, the AfD is clearly ahead of the left. According to current opinion polls, every fifth person favors the right-wing populists. The left, which only managed to get into the Bundestag thanks to the basic mandate clause, is stagnating at four to six percent. In East Germany in particular, where the left traditionally gets good results, approval is crumbling.
The AfD is now the strongest force in East Germany, according to a Forsa survey. According to this, the AfD would have 26 percent in the eastern German states (without Berlin), the left only eight. Incidentally, Lindner’s FDP achieved even less. It comes to six percent in eastern Germany and is not significantly stronger in the federal trend. (as)
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