AfD firmly planning to soften the eastern CDU
Next year, people in Brandenburg, Saxony and Thuringia will elect a new state parliament. The AfD is currently leading in all polls. Can it become prime minister for the first time? Yes, the party's leaders are convinced - with the support of the CDU.
The AfD is confident that the CDU in the east will open up to working with them. The CDU has now adopted all the points on limiting migration that it previously criticized the AfD for being xenophobic, said the AfD's parliamentary group leader in the Bundestag, Bernd Baumann, on ZDF's "Morgenmagazin". There is "no longer any reason at all" for a firewall against the AfD.
CDU Secretary General Carsten Linnemann had reiterated his party's rejection of cooperation with the AfD the previous day. "There will be no cooperation, no coalition, no matter where," he said on ZDF television. There would be "no coordination, not even over a coffee or a glass of beer". With regard to the "firewall" to the AfD invoked by the CDU, Linnemann emphasized: "It stands."
Baumann, however, was certain that the CDU would "come together with us sooner or later, otherwise it will tear them apart." If they form a coalition with the SPD and the Greens instead, they will be punished by the voters. Elections will be held in Thuringia, Saxony and Brandenburg next September. The AfD is ahead in the polls in all eastern states and in second place behind the CDU at national level. However, the CDU has ruled out cooperation by party conference resolution.
The AfD state associations in Thuringia, Saxony-Anhalt and Saxony have been classified by the Office for the Protection of the Constitution as confirmed right-wing extremists, and in several other federal states as suspected right-wing extremists. Baumann rejected this and said of the spokesperson for the radical wing of the party, the Thuringian parliamentary group leader: "Björn Höcke is not a right-wing extremist."
"There is nothing extremist about us"
The Office for the Protection of the Constitution is not independent, but "a beadle of the interior ministers" of the SPD and CDU, says Baumann. "There's nothing extremist about us. We want to protect the borders and we want to preserve our cultural identity in Germany."
Bundestag Vice President Petra Pau of the Left Party, on the other hand, argues that the AfD's work on the ground reveals its lack of interest in real politics. "They pretend to be a party that cares. But they don't care about any real problems, whether it's rising rents, the issue of local public transport or the question of social justice," Pau told Bayerischer Rundfunk radio.
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- Despite the CDU's stance against cooperation with the AfD, the AfD's parliamentary group leader, Bernd Baumann, believes that the CDU in the eastern states will eventually collaborate with them, as refusing to do so might negatively impact their electoral performance in upcoming elections in Brandenburg, Saxony, and Thuringia.
- The Office for the Protection of the Constitution has classified the AfD state associations in Thuringia, Saxony-Anhalt, and Saxony as confirmed right-wing extremists, but AfD's parliamentary group leader, Bernd Baumann, vehemently rejects this label, asserting that the AfD's primary goal is to safeguard the German borders and preserve the country's cultural identity.
- The AfD, which is currently leading in polls in Brandenburg, Saxony, and Thuringia, as well as being second behind the CDU at the national level, is firm in its plans to soften the "eastern CDU," aiming to convince the party to cooperate with them in the upcoming state elections in these regions.
Source: www.ntv.de
