- Kretschmer: Strategically preventing power for populists
Saxony's Minister President Michael Kretschmer (CDU) has urged voters of established parties to vote for his party in the state election on September 1st to prevent populists from gaining power. "If you want to give this country stability, then you must vote strategically in this election," he said in the interview series "Early Start" on RTL/ntv. The CDU is the only party with a chance to form a government and has shown that it can do so.
He believes that few people will change their minds by the time of the election. "We must succeed in the long term because only then can we preserve democracy." In Saxony, the AfD was last polling at 30 percent in an Infratest survey, just ahead of the CDU at 29 percent.
Kretschmer: Federal Government Feeds the Populists
In Kretschmer's view, the poor mood is due to specific unresolved issues: migration, handling of Russia, and "above all, this overreaching state, the high energy costs that are causing people to worry." He holds the federal government responsible. "It's feeding the populists." Instead of tackling the agenda, "it's focusing on fringe issues, 'wokeness' topics, demanding allegiance to democracy or openness to the world." If the traffic light coalition solves the problems that are most pressing to the population, "then populism will lose its footing," he said.
Kretschmer remains adamant that a coalition or cooperation with the AfD after the state election is not an option. And regarding the Bündnis Sahra Wagenknecht (BSW), "we don't know what they want." Their program is "a bit of a grab bag, a black box." The fact that many people are projecting their expectations onto this party is "also a sign of this uncertainty and the search for alternatives."
Kretschmer stated that avoiding a populist takeover in the election is crucial for maintaining stability in the country. If the CDU fails to form a government after the election, it might provide an opportunity for populists to gain more power.
Kretschmer also accused the federal government of contributing to the rise of populism by focusing on non-essential issues and neglecting the concerns of the population, such as migration, handling of Russia, and high energy costs.
