TV duel Höcke against Voigt: These are the traps for the CDU man

analysis

Thuringia election
Höcke versus Voigt: The three traps for the CDU politician in a direct TV duel

For the first time, a CDU politician is giving a right-wing extremist a big stage beyond parliament. If that works out? What the Thuringian top candidate Mario Voigt has to prepare for in his television duel against AfD man Björn Höcke.

On Thursday evening, Thuringia’s AfD state leader Björn Höcke will face his opponent in prime time CDU counterpart Mario Voigt. The two are their parties’ top candidates for the state elections taking place in September. The so-called duel, which is broadcast on “Welt TV”, is highly controversial. While the CDU explains that this is the only way the AfD can be substantiated, critics complain that this is elevating and normalizing a right-wing extremist.

Even the CDU admits internally that the maneuver poses dangers. Voigt can fall into three main traps in the duel against Höcke.

First: knowledge gaps

When dealing with demagogues or even extremists, deep knowledge, long experience and the greatest possible precision are required. In this case, Voigt must not only have read the AfD’s program, but also know the party conference resolutions and the central speeches down to the smallest detail in order to “provide Höcke with the content,” as he puts it as his central claim. As many journalists have learned, every mistake is punished with maximum malice online.

Voigt himself recently demonstrated how quickly inaccuracies can be undermined: The fact that two members of the state parliament are now supposed to discuss European policy is because Voigt did not quote his combatant Höcke correctly. The CDU parliamentary group leader claimed in an interview that the AfD politician wanted to “let Europe die”. In fact, Höcke’s sentence that Voigt was referring to was: “This EU must die so that the true Europe can live” – ​​which in turn was a paraphrased quote from the Nazi-affiliated poet Heinrich Lersch.

Höcke then accused Voigt of making false statements on the spa news service “Or are you chickening out?” he wrote.

Voigt accepted – and could now be confronted by Höcke with his mistake right from the start.

Second: overcompensation

As parliamentary group leader in the Thuringian state parliament, Voigt aggressively ensured that the votes of Höcke’s troops resulted in oppositional majorities in the state parliament. In late summer 2023, for example, the real estate transfer tax was reduced with votes from the CDU, AfD and FDP in Thuringia against the will of the red-red-green minority coalition. Voigt regularly counters the impression that this promotes collusion with the AfD with verbal overcompensation, for example by describing the AfD as a “disgrace for Germany”.

Also on Thursday evening, the Christian Democrat will probably be tempted to escalate his rhetoric in order to dispel any suspicion of clandestine cooperation with Höcke. However, he runs the risk of appearing unconfident. And Höcke would have the opportunity to play the victim. As in other of his rare television appearances, the AfD parliamentary group leader is likely to suppress the demagogue in himself and instead present himself as a persecuted innocence.

Third: appropriation

In the almost ten years that Höcke has now sat in the Thuringian state parliament, he has tried to embrace the CDU. In 2014 he said about Voigt’s predecessor Mike Mohring that he was a “high-profile conservative” and added: “He’s a young striker and full of juice.”

After the 2019 state election, he wrote a letter to Mohring and FDP state leader Thomas Kemmerich and spoke about the intersections of education, asylum, immigration and security policy. The AfD is ready “to talk about new forms of collaboration”, for example about an “expert government supported jointly by our parties or a minority government supported by my party”. Even though the Union and the Liberals rejected the proposal, Kemmerich was elected prime minister just a few weeks later with votes from the AfD, CDU and FDP. By the way, Voigt took part in the election as a member of parliament.

In more recent state parliament speeches, Höcke also oscillates between harsh attacks and open attempts at appropriation. The CDU can still choose the right thing, he says again and again. As with the reduction in the real estate transfer tax, the AfD is always ready to work together for the benefit of the Thuringian people. Höcke should also act like a statesman in this style on Thursday evening – and wait with a smile to see how Voigt reacts to it.