The CDU wants to govern in Saxony and Thuringia – and it will hardly be able to get past the Wagenknecht camp. But there is great unease in the Union.
To avoid any appearance of commitment, Mario Voigt (CDU) has invented a new word. This week, the SPD and BSW will meet, said Thuringia’s possible future Prime Minister yesterday – for “option talks”. They want to clarify the “substantive basis” of a possible collaboration. But please, these are not yet soundings.
That sounded like caution and thin ice, and that’s how it was meant. The problem is not the SPD, but the Wagenknecht party, which has gone from nothing to being a force in the East. There is hardly any way around it to get anywhere near a government majority. But in many ways it is the antithesis of the CDU: hostile to NATO and the USA, pro-Kremlin, against arms deliveries to Ukraine, against US missiles in Germany. Does something that contradicts itself fit together? That is the dilemma. And it is starting to gnaw at the CDU.
Criticism of talks with the BSW after elections in the East – CDU “heading towards the abyss”
Traditionally, foreign policy plays no role at the state level. The fact that things are different now is mainly due to Sahra Wagenknecht. she set coalition conditionswhich are particularly aimed at the relationship with Putin’s Russia. The East CDU officially forbade this, but suddenly started talking about more diplomacy or, like Michael Kretschmer in Saxony, calling for an arms moratorium.
This already gave an indication of what a collaboration with the BSW to the unity of the Union. At the time there was tacit criticism. Now that things are getting serious in the East, it is becoming fundamental.
This was evident on Wednesday, for example, when 40 CDU members, some of them well-known, called for a change of course. The next federal party conference must pass a resolution declaring it incompatible with the BSW, they said. Such a resolution already applies to the AfD and the Left Party. Defense politician Roderich Kiesewetter told the “Tagesspiegel” that the BSW was acting “as an extended arm of the Kremlin” and wanted to “undermine the democratic center, including the Union as a people’s party, and undermine our basic values.” Cooperation was out of the question. EU MP Dennis Radtke said: “The CDU is heading for an abyss if we allow ourselves to be used by Wagenknecht.”
In parts left-wing, in parts right-wing extremist: Despite reservations, the CDU is open to talks
The criticism is clearly directed against the line taken by party leader Friedrich Merz. Weeks ago, he described the BSW as a party that was partly left-wing and partly right-wing extremist, but then gave the eastern state associations a free hand. The local party members have to look into the “black box or red box” and then decide for themselves whether to work together. The fact that the “black box” is not as opaque as is often claimed, and that it is quite clear what Wagenknecht stands for in both foreign and domestic policy, is something that some people are deliberately ignoring these days.
If things go badly, the CDU will face a test of strength, even if Merz sees it differently. “Some of the media are making it up to us,” he said yesterday. Of course, there is “considerable unease” in the West about the debates in Thuringia and Saxony. “But we as the CDU have to put up with that. And we should not give unsolicited public advice from our West German comfort zone.”
Possible effects on Friedrich Merz: CDU leader on thin ice
Perhaps he still remembers that the political events in Thuringia have already been the downfall of a CDU leader. In 2020, Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer resigned as federal chairwoman after CDU MPs, together with the FDP and AfD, elected Thomas Kemmerich (FDP) as minister president. Some in the CDU fear that Merz could find himself in similar difficulties given the extremely difficult majority situation. And that someone in the south is waiting for just that: Markus Söder. A Merz stumble would benefit him in the race for chancellor.
Söder made it known a
t the beginning of the week at Gillamoos that he would “not shirk” the issue. There he again lashed out at the Greens. Some people are wondering whether this is still the right way to set priorities. No one can understand why people in the East want to make a pact with Stalinists like Wagenknecht but rule out coalitions with the Greens, says CDU man Radke.
The talks in Thuringia (where even the CDU, BSW and SPD do not have a majority) and Saxony are likely to be tough. Thuringian CDU circles said that individual voices had spoken out in favor of at least talking to the AfD. Others are thinking about possible minority governments. The Left Party is particularly creative: the CDU should simply tolerate a government made up of the Left, BSW and SPD, they said yesterday: Red-Red-Red. (Marcus Mäckler)
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