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Merkel’s conservatives in turmoil after far-right vote debacle in eastern German state

German Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservatives are in crisis mode after regional MPs sided with the far-right in a key vote, causing nationwide outrage and testing her leadership.

Published: 7 February 2020 15:47 CET
Updated: 7 February 2020 16:47 CET
Merkel's conservatives in turmoil after far-right vote debacle in eastern German state
An exit sign at the CDU press conference on Friday. Photo: DPA

Merkel condemned Wednesday's “unforgivable” vote in the small state of Thuringia, where her CDU party voted in the same camp as the anti-immigrant Alternative for Germany (AfD) to block the re-election of a leftist state premier.

Thanks to the CDU and AfD, Thomas Kemmerich of the liberal Free Democrats, one of Germany's smaller parties, ousted incumbent premier Bodo Ramelow from the far-left Die Linke party by one vote.

It marked the first time a state premier had been voted into office with help from the far right, shattering a taboo in Germany where mainstream parties have always ruled out working with the AfD.

Faced with an uproar, Kemmerich offered his resignation just 25 hours later and called for snap elections.

But the wider aftershocks are only just being felt in Berlin.

“Merkel's fatal error,” headlined the conservative newspaper Die Welt, accusing the veteran chancellor of failing to find a strategy to deal with the growing might of the AfD.

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Merkel's centre-left coalition partners, the Social Democrats (SPD), are fuming about the apparent betrayal in Thuringia.

The two sides will hold crisis talks on Saturday in the latest stress test for the fragile alliance.

“There are a lot of questions that need to be answered to restore trust,” said SPD co-leader Saskia Esken.

Meanwhile, FDP leader Christian Lindner suvived a vote of confidence on Friday and will remain chairman of the party.

In a statement, Lindner apologised and sought to distance himself and the party from the AfD. He said that the FDP belonged to the “democratic centre of the political landscape”.

FDP leader Christian Lindner. Photo: DPA

'Hanging by a thread'

The Thuringia fiasco was also a humiliating blow for Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, who is seen as Merkel's chosen heir but has struggled to assert herself since replacing her mentor as CDU leader in 2018.

The CDU's Thuringia arm, led by the ambitious Mike Mohring, ignored her pleas not to vote alongside the AfD on Wednesday.

Worse still, Kramp-Karrenbauer – often known by her initials AKK – was unable to get the rebel branch to back new elections despite hours of emergency talks late on Thursday, as they fear an even worse showing than in the original October polls.

AKK appears helpless” as her authority is increasingly undermined, the Bild newspaper wrote in a scathing assessment.

Kramp-Karrenbauer's prospects of replacing Merkel as chancellor once the longtime leader bows out in 2021 “are hanging by a thread”, it added.

Die Welt said Merkel and Kramp-Karrenbauer shared the blame for not recognising just how far Mohring would go to have a seat in government.

Nor had they provided the local branch with a plan B after Thuringia's inconclusive legislative polls pushed the CDU into third place behind the AfD and Die Linke – both parties the CDU won't cooperate with.

Kramp-Karrenbauer's arch-rival Friedrich Merz, liked by the CDU's most conservative members, is already waiting in the wings to take advantage of the turmoil.

AKK on Friday. Photo: DPA

He announced this week he was quitting his job on the supervisory board of the German arm of investment firm BlackRock to dedicate himself to politics and helping the CDU “renew itself”.

Cracks in the firewall

Set up in 2013, the AfD started out as an anti-euro outfit before capitalising on widespread anger over Merkel's 2015 decision to allow in a flood of asylum seekers at the height of Europe's refugee crisis.

It now has representatives in every regional parliament in Germany, as well as in the national Bundestag.

The AfD is especially strong in states in the former communist east, putting even more cracks in the political firewall meant to keep them out of power.

“The chancellor has always sidestepped the issue of the AfD, and in Thuringia she's paying the price,” said Welt.

A Forsa survey released Friday predicted that the CDU would be punished most if Thuringians were asked to return to the ballot box.

After scoring 21 percent of the vote in October, the CDU would now slump to just 12 percent.

Former state premier Ramelow's leftist party would come out ahead with an even better showing of 37 percent, followed by the AfD at a slightly improved 24 percent.

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POLITICS

Scholz says attacks on deputies ‘threaten’ democracy

Leading politicians on Saturday condemned an attack on a European deputy with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz's party, after investigators said a political motive was suspected.

Published: 5 May 2024 08:34 CEST
Scholz says attacks on deputies 'threaten' democracy

Scholz denounced the attack as a “threat” to democracy and the European Union’s foreign policy chief Josep Borrell also sounded the alarm.

Police said four unknown attackers beat up Matthias Ecke, an MEP for the Social Democratic Party (SPD), as he put up EU election posters in the eastern city of Dresden on Friday night.

Ecke, 41, was “seriously injured” and required an operation after the attack, his party said. Police confirmed he needed hospital treatment.

“Democracy is threatened by this kind of act,” Scholz told a congress of European socialist parties in Berlin, saying such attacks result from “discourse, the atmosphere created from pitting people against each other”.

“We must never accept such acts of violence… we must oppose it together.”

Borrell, posting on X, formerly Twitter, also condemned the attack.

“We’re witnessing unacceptable episodes of harassment against political representatives and growing far-right extremism that reminds us of dark times of the past,” he wrote.

“It cannot be tolerated nor underestimated. We must all defend democracy.”

The investigation is being led by the state protection services, highlighting the political link suspected by police.

“If an attack with a political motive… is confirmed just a few weeks from the European elections, this serious act of violence would also be a serious act against democracy,” Interior Minister Nancy Faeser said in a statement.

This would be “a new dimension of anti-democratic violence”, she added.

Series of attacks

Ecke, who is head of the SPD’s EU election list in the Saxony region, was just the latest political target to be attacked in Germany.

Police added that a 28-year-old man putting up posters for the Greens had earlier been “punched” and “kicked” in the same Dresden street. The same attackers were suspected.

Faeser said “extremists and populists are stirring up a climate of increasing violence”.

The SPD highlighted the role of the far-right “AfD party and other right-wing extremists” in increased tensions.

“Their supporters are now completely uninhibited and clearly view us democrats as game,” said Henning Homann and Kathrin Michel, regional SPD leaders.

Armin Schuster, interior minister in Saxony, where an important regional vote is due to be held in September, said 112 acts of political violence linked to the elections have been recorded there since the beginning of the year.

Of that number, 30 were directed against people holding political office of one kind or another.

“What is really worrying is the intensity with which these attacks are currently increasing,” he said on Saturday.

On Thursday two Greens deputies were abused while campaigning in Essen in western Germany and one was hit in the face, police said.

Last Saturday, dozens of demonstrators surrounded parliament deputy speaker Katrin Goering-Eckardt, also a Greens lawmaker, in her car in eastern Germany. Police reinforcements had to clear a route for her to get away.

According to provisional police figures, 2,790 crimes were committed against politicians in Germany in 2023, up from 1,806 the previous year, but less than the 2,840 recorded in 2021, when legislative elections took place.

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