Traffic Light Coalition
FDP rebels complain about white lies and “shell player tricks”
More than 600 party members have so far joined the push for a member survey about the FDP’s continued participation in the traffic light coalition. photo
© Daniel Karmann/dpa
The FDP party leadership is under pressure. A co-initiator of a member survey about the party’s whereabouts in the traffic lights handed over signatures collected in Berlin.
The initiators of a member survey about the whereabouts of the The FDP in the traffic light coalition handed over more than 600 signatures for their initiative in Berlin. It is expected that a nationwide opinion in the party will be obtained in January, if possible, said Kassel district chairman Matthias Nölke, a co-initiator, in front of the federal office in Berlin. It would be a success for the project if 60 or 70 percent of the members took part “and more than half of them said: get out of the traffic lights”.
The initiative follows an open letter from 26 state and local politicians from the FDP, who demanded that the FDP should reconsider its coalition partners after the poor election results in Hesse and Bavaria. The question text should therefore read: “Should the FDP end the coalition with the SPD and the Greens as part of the federal government?” The answer options are “yes” and “no”.
Is the traffic light dragging the FDP into the abyss?
Nölke, who was a member of the Bundestag until 2021, criticized the state of the coalition. “So the fact that after eleven months, after the year is actually over, you still have to determine the emergency situation for the current financial year is actually more of a white lie than an emergency situation,” he said. Nölke spoke of a “fiscal policy big bang” that shows that this coalition is unable to solve problems and is pouring money into them. However, “shell player tricks” were exposed. The watchword now is: hold on to responsibility. Nölke said: “But this clinging to responsibility – in my opinion and in the opinion of many others – is bringing the country to the abyss and the FDP in the wake of it.”