Shortly before the CDU federal party conference, Schleswig-Holstein’s Prime Minister Daniel Günther spoke out against equating the AfD and the Left Party. “There is no equidistance to the Left Party and the AfD, and Bodo Ramelow is not a threat to democracy. He is a smart person who I respect and who works with all colleagues in the Prime Minister’s Conference,” said the CDU politician Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung with a view to the state elections in Thuringia and the local Prime Minister Ramelow.
The CDU has “decidedly different views on many issues” and he would not seek a coalition with the Left Party, emphasized Günter. But the Left Party and the AfD cannot be equated, he added.
The background is an incompatibility decision by the CDU against cooperation with both parties. But there is a difference whether you are dealing with a party that is judged by the Office for the Protection of the Constitution in Thuringia and two other states to be definitely right-wing extremist, or with a party that has been the Prime Minister for many years. “Democracy in Thuringia has neither been abolished in the past ten years, nor has it been endangered. Things are different now with the AfD,” said Günther.
In Thuringia, Ramelow governs in a minority government together with the SPD and the Greens. The CDU voted with the government on individual issues such as the budget. The CDU has not yet made any so-called incompatibility decision against the party of the former left-wing politician Sahra Wagenknecht, BSW.