At the beginning of 2020, the AfD will help a prime minister into office for the first time. Ex-Chancellor Merkel calls the process on a trip to South Africa “unforgivable”. Did she cross a red line herself?
In February 2020, the then Chancellor Angela Merkel (CDU) called the election of a prime minister with AfD votes in Thuringia “unforgivable” – now the Federal Constitutional Court is deciding whether she has crossed a red line.
The judges in Karlsruhe are today announcing their verdict after two lawsuits by the AfD against the former Chancellor and the federal government. The party feels that its right to equal opportunities in political competition has been violated.
Bodo Ramelow (left) had actually wanted to be re-elected head of government on February 5, 2020 in the state parliament in Erfurt. He didn’t get enough votes in the first two ballots. In the third ballot, the FDP politician Thomas Kemmerich surprisingly beat him by one vote – co-elected by the CDU and AfD.
It was the first time that the AfD helped a prime minister into office. Merkel, who was traveling at the time, spoke up the day after the election and prefaced her press conference with South African President Cyril Ramaphosa with a “preliminary remark” “for domestic political reasons”. The result must be “undone,” she said, at least the CDU should not participate in this government. And: “It was a bad day for democracy.” A transcript of the press conference was meanwhile available on bundeskanzlerin.de and bundesregierung.de.
Politicians must remain neutral
Kemmerich resigned after three days under the high pressure, he had been in office without a government until March. Ramelow became prime minister again.
The AfD has already successfully sued former Interior Minister Horst Seehofer (CSU) in Karlsruhe because an interview with passages critical of the AfD was on his ministry website. And Johanna Wanka (CDU) was reprimanded during her time as Minister of Education for having called for the “red card” for the AfD in a ministry statement. According to these judgments, politicians are allowed to publicly criticize the AfD. However, they must uphold the principle of state neutrality when expressing themselves in their role as members of the government.
In the Karlsruhe negotiations on the Thuringia elections in July 2021, Merkel’s Chancellor Helge Braun (CDU) defended the statements by saying that the journalists traveling with them and, above all, the coalition partner wanted a position. It was also about the international reputation of the Federal Republic of Germany. Regarding the transcripts on the website, he said that press conferences were always documented verbatim and in full. Journalists would rely on that.
The AfD had rated the statements as a direct attack. “We believe that such an attack, especially during an official state visit under the logo of the Federal Chancellor, is unconstitutional and that Mrs Merkel has violated her duty of neutrality,” said Vice-Chairman Stephan Brandner. The then co-party leader Jörg Meuthen, who has since left the AfD, said: “She tried to delegitimize a state election, in the exercise of her office as Chancellor.”
Source: Stern
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