SPD, Greens and Liberals advance in polls to negotiate a coalition government
After the recent and historic electoral disaster, the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) announced on Monday that the entire party executive, including the president of the formation, will be renewed and elected in an extraordinary congress. At the end of a meeting of the executive unions of the CDU, its general secretary, Paul Ziemiak, stressed that the presidents of the 325 constituencies of the party will meet on October 30 to address the issue and that three days later the presidency and the executive Federals will decide how to include the bases in the personal renewal process. Ziemiak left open whether the congress will take place in December or January and expressed the will of the still high officials of the CDU to carry out an analysis of the mistakes made during the “sincere and brutal” electoral campaign.
The still president of the Christian Democrats, Armin Laschet, had already announced last Thursday that he wishes to moderate the renewal process of the Germanic conservatives and announced that he was renouncing his personal ambitions both when it came to continuing in the leadership of the party and in the case. that if the current talks between the SPD, Greens and Liberals (FDP) fail, the CDU has the option of leading the next federal executive. Laschet did not communicate, however, when he intends to resign from the Christian Democratic presidency. In that sense, Ziemiak said that Laschet still has an option to get a tripartite forward with Greens and Liberals if they do not reach an agreement with the Social Democrats. “We are watching the polling conversations accurately and our offer still stands,” he said.
Meanwhile, social democrats, environmentalists and liberals advanced in their polls during a meeting of more than ten hours of which, as the three formations had agreed, nothing of its content was transcended abroad. The talks took place on neutral ground, at the headquarters of the Berlin Trade Fair, with six interlocutors from each party, including the SPD candidate for Federal Chancellery, Olaf Scholz, the co-presidents of the Greens Annalena Baerbock and Robert Habeck , and the leader of the FDP, Christian Lindner. The programs of each formation are compared and it is studied that they can combine well, explained Thomas Kutschaty, president of the Social Democracy in Hamburg. “I can imagine many areas in which we can certainly achieve relevant changes in social policy,” said the SPD politician.
After highlighting that it makes little sense to start at this point in the pre-negotiation polls to start marking red lines, Kutschaty stressed that the important thing at the beginning of the contacts is to create a good climate of trust, since it is about bringing together three very differentiated and all of them must prostrate willing to compromise. The polls between the SPD, greens and liberals will continue this Tuesday and are postponed until Friday due to an official trip to the United States by Scholz, still head of Finance in Angela Merkel’s cabinet. In order not to waste time, Wednesday and Thursday there will nevertheless be conversations that will be led by the respective general secretaries. At the end of the week, the three parties involved hope to be able to say whether they are ready to enter into negotiations to draft a coalition agreement.
On the other hand, the ultra-nationalist Alternative for Germany (AfD) threatens to become even more radical after the moderate Jörg Meuthen announced on Monday that he has no intention of running for re-election as co-chairman of the party in the federal congress that will take place in December. “After deep reflections and intense conversations, especially with my family, I have decided not to run again as a candidate at that congress,” Meuthen said in an email sent to all members of the xenophobic and eurosceptic party. Meuthen’s withdrawal is seen as a show of resignation by moderate forces in the AfD and the triumph of the most extreme. He is not the first moderate leader to throw in the towel under pressure from the most radical wing. In 2015, its founder Bernd Lucke left the party harassed by the extremists in its midst and in 2017 his successor, Frauke Petry, did for similar reasons.
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