analysis
How does the CDU feel about the Left and the Sahra Wagenknecht alliance after the state elections in Brandenburg, Saxony and Thuringia? The party absolutely wants to put the vexed question aside. There is more clarity about the AfD.
The message is clear: Nothing will happen with the AfD. The CDU leadership has been trying for months to stifle any discussion about cooperation with the partly right-wing extremist party after the state elections in the fall. The Federal Executive Board only confirmed this in April.
A standard sentence from Secretary General Carsten Linnemann is: “Such people are not allowed to experience responsibility for a second in Germany.” Saxony’s Prime Minister Michael Kretschmer has tied his personal future to a government without the AfD. In Thuringia and Brandenburg the signs also point to demarcation.
How to govern with Incompatibility decision?
The question remains as to who the CDU will want to govern with if there are no majorities in September for previously tested coalitions. The CDU has an incompatibility decision with the Left Party as well as with the AfD. Both party leaders Friedrich Merz and Michael Kretschmer as well as the state leaders of Thuringia and Brandenburg, Mario Voigt and Jan Redmann, continue to hold this in high regard.
Some Christian Democrats have recently questioned him when it comes to the left. Daniel Günther, Prime Minister of Schleswig-Holstein, did it most recently. Those responsible did not react enthusiastically. If Günter wants to become Prime Minister in Thuringia, “he should get in touch,” said Michael Kretschmer in the ARD talk show Caren Miosga. Mario Voigt spoke in Deutschlandfunk of “debates that really annoy people”. This set the tone for the CDU federal party conference this week.
Friedrich Merz received some of the biggest applause there when he emphasized the CDU’s claim to leadership. The party has “the strength, the importance and determination” to make stable governments possible in East Germany too.
What speaks for it: The survey results are not outstanding, but the trend is correct. In Brandenburg the CDU is within striking distance of the SPD, in Saxony well ahead of all other parties except the AfD and in Thuringia it has been slightly ahead of the Left Party for months. But Merz didn’t say a word about how “stable governments” can succeed.
CDU has the choice
The CDU knows that the other parties depend on them. The SPD cannot rely solely on red-red-green: left-wing majorities do not currently appear to be achievable in either Brandenburg or Thuringia – and certainly not in Saxony.
The FDP in Thuringia and Free Voters in Saxony – should they make it into the state parliaments – see themselves as natural partners of the CDU. The Greens always emphasize their political responsibility, no matter how much they pester the CDU.
The offer of cooperation from the Left Party in Thuringia comes from Prime Minister Bodo Ramelow himself. In Saxony, the left-wing parliamentary group leader there suggested that a CDU government would be tolerated. The “Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance” also enters the conversation, sometimes more or less subtly, as a coalition partner of the CDU.
Even the AfD, which continually attacks the CDU, is an option. “My hand is still outstretched,” said Thuringia’s AfD leader Björn Höcke to CDU politician Mario Voigt at the end of the TV duel. While Höcke probably wanted to cause unrest in the CDU, others in the AfD simply want to get out of the opposition. In any case, Voigt turned down the offer.
More different Dealing with Linker and BSW
The same Voigt repeatedly emphasizes why there are different reasons for the CDU not being able to form a coalition with the AfD and the Left. What is striking, however, is how differently the CDU deals with the Sahra Wagenknecht (BSW) alliance, which emerged from the Left Party. The BSW is treated almost cautiously by the conservatives.
Wagenknecht initially built her political career on defending the GDR – and continues to pursue a staunchly anti-NATO course to this day. For the CDU, both are the proverbial red flag. On the other hand, there are overlaps in economic, migration and – with parts of the Eastern CDU – also Russia-Ukraine policy.
Michael Kretschmer (“Can’t say anything about this group”), Jan Redmann (“Too speculative for me”) and Mario Voigt (“Another black box”) have not yet explicitly ruled out collaboration with the BSW – neither has Friedrich Merz.
There is something to be said for the debate – a lot against it
Apparently it’s not just the management staff who are relying on calm. In the run-up to the federal party conference, those who want to remove the Left Party from the incompatibility resolution have not come together to submit a proposal, nor have those forces formed who also want to add the BSW.
An open debate could have provided clarity. Mario Voigt in particular could have gotten support to at least be tolerated by the Ramelow left.
However, there are many reasons that speak against this debate. The dispute would have released considerable centrifugal forces in the election campaign. Forces that only appear after the elections if the discussion is still necessary. Saxony-Anhalt’s Prime Minister Reiner Haseloff warned on the sidelines of the party conference that a coalition with the Left could “tear apart” the CDU.
Cooperation with the SED successor party would also strengthen those CDU representatives at the local level and in the back rows of the state parliament who consider the AfD to be a normal party. Currently, top staff at the federal and state levels have these forces under control. In order for Friedrich Merz to reach for the candidacy for chancellor, it has to stay that way.
And if the debate were to end with an incompatibility decision made more stringent about the BSW, it would hardly help anyone – for example if there are ultimately no majorities in Dresden or Erfurt without the BSW or the Left apart from the AfD.
holes in Incompatibility decision
The CDU is already showing itself to be more flexible than it lets on. The incompatibility decision did not stop the Thuringian state parliamentary group from concluding a stability pact with red-red-green – and after it expired, among other things, from negotiating the annual budgets with each other.
The same CDU faction then also brought votes with the AfD and FDP through the Erfurt state parliament. Parliamentary group leader Mario Voigt credibly denies that there were any agreements in advance. The AfD’s stance on questionable anti-gender regulations and a reduction in real estate transfer tax was known in advance.
Future CDU governments could take similar paths. Mario Voigt has long made it clear that he expects the Left to clear the way for him to become prime minister if necessary if the CDU comes out ahead in the state elections in Thuringia.
Following the practice of recent years, cooperation would not automatically mean a coalition. The only thing that is certain is that the CDU does not want to have this discussion until the elections.