AIn view of the upcoming state elections in several eastern German states and the possible strength of the AfD, Federal President Joachim Gauck has called on the CDU to revise its decision to be incompatible with the Left Party. “The AfD can get us into trouble in the East,” he told the newspapers of the Germany editorial network. “In Thuringia or Saxony it could happen that in order to defend against an AfD government, parties that do not belong together at all have to come together. You can’t wish for that, but it can happen.”
Gauck went on to say that he was not suspected of being a lover of the left. But the majority in the party defends democracy. “If the CDU has once made an incompatibility decision, such a decision can also be revised under new political aspects and in a new problem situation.”
Thuringia’s Prime Minister Bodo Ramelow (Left) has shown that the Left has become compatible there. “New coalitions will be formed that we will have to get used to.” Gauck called the new Sahra Wagenknecht (BSW) alliance a party of left-wing populists with a pro-Putin policy.
Martin Schirdewan and Bodo Ramelow in Ilmenau in March
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Image: dpa
In this spirit, Left Party leader Martin Schirdewan has not ruled out a coalition between his party and the Sahra Wagenknecht alliance or the CDU in Thuringia. “All democratic forces must at least be able to talk to each other, especially when it comes to preventing the rise of the new fascism and sending a clear democratic signal,” Schirdewan told the “Rheinische Post”.
The former left-wing politician Sahra Wagenknecht and her colleagues founded the BSW party in January, which caused the left-wing faction in the Bundestag to break up and is now only represented there as a group. The BSW wants to run in the European elections in June as well as in the state elections in Thuringia, Saxony and Brandenburg.
AfD leads in the polls
The political situation in Thuringia has been considered extremely complex for years. In the federal state with a population of 2.1 million, Germany’s only left-wing Prime Minister Bodo Ramelow leads a minority government made up of the Left, the SPD and the Greens – without a permanent tolerating partner, which is a novelty in Germany.
Ramelow will run again in the state elections on September 1st. However, according to recent surveys, it could once again be difficult to form a government. Accordingly, the AfD recently lost support in the most recent two surveys, but was still in first place with values between 29 and 31 percent, followed by the CDU with 20 to 21 percent. Ramelow’s left was between 16 and 18 percent, the Sahra Wagenknecht alliance was at 13 to 15 percent. According to the surveys, the FDP would fail at the five percent hurdle, the Greens are at five percent and the SPD at values between six and nine percent.
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