Germany’s centre-right parties are scrambling to recover credibility after opening – then slamming shut again – the door to what chancellor Angela Merkel castigated as an “unforgivable” co-operation with the far right.
On Wednesday in the eastern state of Thuringia, a little-known liberal politician was elected state premier thanks to the votes of his own Free Democrats (FDP) party, the centre-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and the far-right Alternative für Deutschland (AfD). A day later, and just hours after he refused to stand down, local FDP leader Thomas Kemmerich did just that.
“Resigning is unavoidable ... the AfD tried a trick yesterday to damage democracy,” he said. “Democrats need practical democratic majorities. This does not appear to be possible in this parliament.”
Fresh elections seem likely in the small state, with uncertain outcomes for the tiny FDP and the centre-right CDU.
So serious is the political crisis it prompted an intervention from Dr Merkel, more than a year after she stepped down as CDU leader. Any co-operation by her party with the AfD, she said, “broke with CDU values” and breached its clear ban on political co-operation with, or toleration of, the far-right.
“Everything must be done to make it clear that this can in no way be brought in line with what the CDU thinks and does,” said Dr Merkel, in a swipe at her successor as party leader, Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer.
On Wednesday evening a defensive CDU leader said on television she appealed to her Thuringian colleagues not to risk such an outcome.
As she hunkered down with leading party officials on Wednesday night, a protest camp built around the Thuringian parliament in the state capital, Erfurt. As that protest continued yesterday, the centre-left Social Democratic Party (SPD) called a crisis meeting with the CDU, its grand coalition partner in Berlin.
In Erfurt, FDP federal leader Christian Lindner dismissed claims he was aware of the AfD vote plan ahead of time. He described the party’s strategy as a symbolic FDP candidature gone wrong with “no intention to actually reach office.”
Confidence vote
In a bid to rescue his own credibility, Mr Lindner will today call a confidence vote in his leadership at a senior party council meeting.
Wednesday’s surprise vote was an attempt to break a political deadlock after an indecisive regional election last October left neither the centre-right nor the left camps with a working state parliament majority. The outgoing coalition, headed by the Left Party and its leader, Bodo Ramelow, had hoped to be re-elected this week as a minority government.
Yesterday, Mr Ramelow posted an Adolf Hitler quote from 1930, praising a Nazi election result in the same state: “We really are the decisive party today ... the parties in Thuringia, which previously formed the government, cannot raise a majority without our participation.”
