interview
Former CDU Prime Minister
“It’s five past twelve”: Tobias Hans doubts Friedrich Merz’ suitability as chancellor
Tobias Hans, former CDU Prime Minister in Saarland: “The CDU leadership missed that”
© Oliver Dietze / DPA
Tobias Hans accuses the CDU chairman of not distinguishing himself decisively enough from the AfD. “It’s five past twelve,” says the former Prime Minister of Saarland. “Friedrich Merz must finally see that too.”
Excuse me, the far-right AfD continues to rise in the polls, in some countries it is already the strongest force – and it is celebrating its first electoral successes at local level. That must alarm a conservative-bourgeois party like the CDU, and it must clearly distance itself from it. The CDU leadership failed to do this.
Merz instead praises the CDU as an “alternative for Germany – with substance” and has identified the Greens as the “main opponent”. a mistake?
Rather, I have the suspicion that this is a strategy to try to establish a new sound in the CDU. This is the farewell to the middle course with which the CDU has governed successfully for almost 20 years. We shouldn’t waste our time distancing ourselves from the Greens, who are just our fellow Democrats. But the AfD is our political enemy, because, as is well known, there are not only democrats in their ranks.
Is Friedrich Merz still the right chairman?
Nowadays you have to tremble before every summer interview because you don’t know what will come out of it at the end. To be honest, I don’t want to imagine that a Chancellor appointed by the CDU would cause such concern. And if someone had the declared goal of halving the AfD – and then easily doubling it – then at least that is not proof of success. And even the change of Secretary General after just one and a half years does not speak for leadership.
Friedrich Merz as chancellor candidate? “Question completely open”
Merz would like to become chancellor candidate. Agreed?
I consider this question to be completely open. Especially in difficult times, it is important that a party’s top candidate has government experience – and a sure instinct when it comes to difficult questions. We have good heads of government in the countries. We mustn’t belittle their successes, we have to get them into the team. Only together we are strong. The party leadership still has to learn that.
What does the CDU have to do to keep the AfD small and regain its old strength?
The CDU must position itself at the center of society and be a partner to those who are committed to a modern Germany. We need more CO2 savings, more electric mobility, new technologies. All major CDU politicians – from Konrad Adenauer to Helmut Kohl to Angela Merkel – have set themselves the goal of being at the forefront of progress while upholding conservative values. Being an advocate and contact person for everyone in Germany again, listening to them and offering concrete solutions to people’s problems on this basis – we have to build on that, then we will also gain the trust of young people and women – we are really on the decline at the moment.
Do you see a chance that Friedrich Merz can join the ranks of the CDU greats?
If someone spends so much time trying to distance themselves from a Chancellor who has significantly shaped and advanced this country, I have to honestly tell you: it will be very difficult.
Tobias Hans: “It’s five past twelve”
Does the CDU need a new resolution to clarify its position on the AfD?
No. But the chairman must clearly commit to the current decision: no cooperation with extremists, neither from the right nor from the left! This basic consensus has made the CDU strong.
But is it really enough to just set aside the AfD?
We have to put the AfD in content and expose its politics for what they are: exclusionary and destructive. But that’s not what the party leader does. In his interview, Merz suggested that compromises can also be sought with the AfD. We have to seek consensus with democratic parties! It can’t be that we – because it’s so nice right now – just carve a majority with the AfD. In the next step we find ourselves as junior partners of the AfD.
Aren’t you exaggerating a little?
But on the contrary. Now it is becoming difficult for a district chairman or district chairman at the local level to give up not electing a local mayor with the AfD. That’s exactly how the failure of an entire state in the Weimar Republic gradually began and led to terrible things that were brought to the world in the name of Germany. I can only remember that the NSDAP was also elected in democratic elections. The AfD is now at 22 percent nationwide. It’s not five to twelve, it’s five past twelve. Friedrich Merz must finally see that.