Merz shoots against Wagenknecht party
Even before her party is founded, Sahra Wagenknecht offers the CDU the opportunity to form government alliances. While not everyone in the eastern state associations is ruling this out, federal politicians are outraged. Friedrich Merz is now also making it clear once again what he thinks of the group of ex-leftists.
CDU chairman Friedrich Merz has sharply attacked Sahra Wagenknecht and her yet-to-be-founded party. The CDU will tell voters: "Take a good look at this. Nobody in this country needs this mixture of socialism and nationalism," said the CDU/CSU parliamentary group leader. Merz added: "There is a broad political offering among the established parties, including us, the CDU/CSU Union. There is no gap."
"In the political center of this country, we must ensure that the extremes do not become even stronger," Merz appealed. He hopes that "a clearer political contouring of the CDU will also have such an effect", he emphasized with regard to the draft of the CDU's new basic programme, which is to be adopted at a CDU executive committee meeting in January as a draft for a federal party conference in May.
Merz said that it was currently difficult to estimate how large the vote potential of the former left-wing politician's new "Sahra Wagenknecht alliance" would be. According to an initial analysis of the CDU, the potential is "definitely around 10 percent. A small proportion of this is potentially at the expense of the CDU." It is also possible that AfD voters will switch to the Wagenknecht party camp. How many is difficult to say.
Wagenknecht, a long-time Left Party politician, left the party in the fall with nine members of the Bundestag to found a rival project. Initially organized as an association, the "Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance" is to formally become a party on 8 January.
Concerns about AfD success
Looking ahead to 2024 with a European election and nine local elections on 9 June as well as three state elections in Thuringia, Saxony and Brandenburg in September, which will be difficult due to high AfD poll ratings, Merz said: "It is important for us that we have a voter potential of around 40 percent. We will only be able to exploit this under the best and most favorable conditions."
The CDU/CSU must become so strong in the Bundestag elections that it will not be possible to govern without or against it. "This goal is achievable, despite the competition we are currently seeing on the far left and far right." The Union is currently polling between 31 and 34 percent.
When asked how worried he was that nothing would work without the AfD in forming a government after the elections in the east in the fall, the CDU chairman said: "That is indeed a particularly big challenge." However, he was confident "that we will succeed in becoming the strongest parliamentary group in all three federal states again." He will also be "personally very involved in the election campaigns and will also tell people: think carefully about what you do. Because every vote for the AfD is a vote for a left-wing government."
No cooperation with AfD and Left Party
Merz recalled that his party's decision to reject the AfD and the Left Party still applies. "We will emphasize once again and make it clear that there is no cooperation with the AfD for us. This applies to all countries in Germany." With regard to the AfD and the Left Party, Merz emphasized: "It is completely unthinkable that we would work together with these parties." Whether the CDU has to formally decide this again is another question. "We must not and should not upgrade these parties without necessity."
In Thuringia, the CDU is currently tolerating a minority government led by the Left Party and Minister President Bodo Ramelow. If the Christian Democrats do not want to form a coalition with either the AfD or the Left Party after the next election, the federal state may be threatened with gridlock. Polls recently put the AfD at around 34% and the CDU and Left Party at around 20%. All other parties lagged behind.
Sahra Wagenknecht, who has not yet founded her party, had already shown herself to be open to alliances with the CDU at state level, which led to controversy. Some party representatives in the east were not fundamentally opposed to this, but federal politicians were.
Warning of a "lesson to be learned"
After the election victory of right-wing populist Geert Wilders in the Netherlands in November, he took a close look at what had happened there, said Merz. Foreigners, asylum and immigration were the main topics there. In addition, a liberal-conservative party had not ruled out working with Wilders. "The result is that this party became by far the strongest party in the Dutch parliament. We will not repeat these mistakes here," promised the CDU leader. "I hope that we won't have to talk about this issue too much in the election campaigns."
With a view to June 9, Merz warned that "elections to the European Parliament are always susceptible to a rethink". It is the task of politicians to explain the importance of these elections to the population. "This is the parliament for the whole of Europe, which makes key decisions on domestic policy, foreign policy, economic policy and internal market policy." He will do everything he can to "dispel the impression that it is easy to give a lesson here without consequences. Such a lesson would have consequences."
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Friedrich Merz, the CDU chairman, has criticized Sahra Wagenknecht's proposed alliance, stating that her party's mix of socialism and nationalism is unnecessary in the political landscape of Germany. Previously, Wagenknecht, a former Left Party politician, expressed the notion of forming alliances with the CDU at the state level, although this was met with opposition from federal politicians within the CDU.
Source: www.ntv.de
