Right to vote for refugees? FDP leader Lindner has a clear opinion on Interior Minister Nancy Faeser’s proposal.
Wiesbaden/Munich – New trouble for Federal Interior Minister Nancy Faeser (SPD): The Union and the FDP are taking a head-on stand against plans by the SPD in Hesse and Bavaria to give refugees the right to vote.
Linder opposes Faeser’s move: “It creates the wrong incentives”
The election program of the SPD Hesse, whose top candidate is Faeser, states: “We want to work hard at the federal level and in the Bundesrat to ensure that all people who have lived in Hessian municipalities for more than six months are given the right to vote at local level.” This applies to: other refugees. After the announcement, the Hesse SPD quickly rowed back. Said opposite Picturethat the right to vote should be introduced after 6 years and not months. A Hessian SPD spokesman called it a “stupid mistake”. However, the Bavarian SPD calls for the right to vote in local and even state elections after three years of residence in its program. Details are not recorded in either program.
But Nancy Faeser faced a lot of headwind even before the correction, and not just for six months instead of years. FDP leader Christian Lindner strictly rejected the proposal. “I think the suggestion is absurd,” he told our editorial team. He clearly distanced himself from his cabinet colleague Faeser: “This is not a signal from the federal government, just a signal from a single party.” FDP parliamentary group deputy Konstantin Kuhle also said in an interview: “This creates the wrong incentives and devalues German citizenship.”
“Nonsense”: Bavaria’s Interior Minister Hermann criticizes Faeser
There is also protest from the CSU. State parliamentary group leader Thomas Kreuzer accused Faeser of “continuing her wrong path in migration policy against all resistance and realities.” Instead, the Federal Minister of the Interior should do everything “to limit migration”. The fact that EU citizens are allowed to vote in local elections is right and an expression of European integration. “But it has to stay that way,” demanded Kreuzer. Bavaria’s Interior Minister Joachim Herrmann told our editorial team that the plan was “nonsense” and that Faeser was doing the integration a “disservice.” With these ideas she is playing “into the hands of exactly the right-wing extremists that she actually wants to fight”.
Exactly which group of people the SPD means is unclear. In Faeser’s environment it is said that it is about people with “permanent residence permits”. This would exclude rejected asylum seekers and even include requirements to earn their own living and to be able to speak the German language – which is not a requirement for residents to have the right to vote. This is formally recorded in Election program for October 8th, which has been causing a bit of sudden excitement nationwide since this week, but not. In addition, according to these criteria, people from Afghanistan or Syria could then vote for local politicians in Germany. Local politicians are concerned that how many recognized asylum seekers are accommodated in which municipality could then become a deciding factor in the election. (Christian Deutschländer/Anne-Christine Merholz)
#Union #FDP #oppose #Faesers #electoral #rights #plans #headon