How does the CDU feel about the left? Under Merz, the motto obviously applies: the countries decide.
(Photo: imago images/BeckerBredel)
Berlin When Max Otte announced that he would run for the office of Federal President at the request of the AfD, the leader of the Value Union lost all his rights as a CDU member within ten hours. “We will show him tonight that we are acting very quickly and very clearly,” said party leader Friedrich Merz at the time. The “fire wall to the AfD” that Merz had announced was in place.
And yet the question now arises: under its new chairman, how does the CDU feel about the fringes of the political spectrum? To the right, it seems, Merz wants to show a clear edge. But what’s left? And does the clear edge apply absolutely or only at the federal level?
A look at Thuringia helps to answer these questions. There this week, the CDU in the state parliament approved the budget of the Left, Greens and SPD. In doing so, it enabled the Red-Red-Green Party to rule for another year under Left Prime Minister Bodo Ramelow, despite the lack of a majority in the state parliament.
In 2019, that still seemed impossible. There was a political stalemate after the state election. Without the left or the AfD, government in the federal state was not possible. At that time, the debate alone about the CDU’s next steps out of this stalemate almost tore the party apart. The then CDU boss Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer even announced her resignation because of the mixed situation in Erfurt.
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Special conditions in the east
It has been the case in East Germany for years: the weaker the CDU becomes and the stronger the AfD, the more difficult it becomes to form a coalition. Saxony’s CDU leader Michael Kretschmer, for example, also came in just ahead of the AfD and organized a “Germany coalition” with the SPD and Greens, while in Saxony-Anhalt Reiner Haseloff had to join forces with the SPD and FDP so that the AfD and the left could remain on the opposition bench .
In Thuringia this was impossible. CDU top candidate Mike Mohring was also caught by a decision by the federal party: no cooperation with the left or AfD. But then, on the morning after the election, Mohring said what was forbidden: “Stable conditions are more important to me than the fact that it’s just about party political interests.” Incidentally, he doesn’t need Berlin “to know what’s important for Thuringia”. .
Sharp objections followed from Berlin. The current party deputy and head of the basic program commission, Carsten Linnemann, even saw the “end of the people’s party” approaching.
Group leader Voigt defends cooperation
And today? Voigt, now head of the parliamentary group and deputy head of the basic program commission of the federal CDU instead of Mohring, says that the country must remain capable of acting, even if there is no majority in parliament.
That’s why he negotiated with Left Prime Minister Bodo Ramelow and organized the majority. “With tough financial conditions, changes in the law and long-term demands for reform, the CDU has achieved a policy change from the opposition,” he explains. “We want to get even more out of this strong position for the Thuringian citizens and replace red-red-green in the next election.”
Party leader Merz did not want to comment on the new cooperation. The incompatibility decision, passed at the federal party conference in 2018, continues to apply, supplemented in 2019 by an eleven-page paper by the federal executive board.
Now the state associations decide
Under Merz, the motto obviously applies: the state associations decide.
The party also keeps it federal in other problem cases in Thuringia: in the case of Hans Georg Maassen, for example, there should be no more upheaval. The former president of the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution likes to provoke and has persuaded leading politicians such as the new deputy party leader Karin Prien to demand his expulsion from the party.
But now that he has missed the leap into the Bundestag, other rules apply. “Mr Maassen ran for the Bundestag and lost, he is a simple party member, and we should look at those who are in the middle of the party and deal with the main issues,” Merz ironed out the issue in January.
One should not pay too much attention to his “peculiar positions”.
More: Omnipresent and with clear messages: How Friedrich Merz is speeding up the opposition