The CDU has ruled out cooperation with the AfD by a party conference resolution. But the AfD parliamentary group leader in the Bundestag is still confident.
The AfD is confident that the CDU will open up to cooperation with it in the East. The CDU has now adopted all the points on limiting migration that it previously criticized as xenophobic in the AfD, so there is “no longer any reason” for a firewall against the AfD, said the AfD’s parliamentary group leader in the Bundestag, Bernd Baumann. in the ZDF “Morgenmagazin”.
“That means the CDU has to come together with us sooner or later, otherwise it will tear them apart.” If she instead forms a coalition with the SPD and the Greens, she will be punished by the voters, he added, with a view to the state elections next September in Thuringia, Saxony and Brandenburg.
Bundestag Vice President Petra Pau from the Left told Bayerischer Rundfunk: “From my point of view, it is a catastrophe to give the enemies of democracy even more means through the votes to fight democracy from within. And the AfD is now saying “It’s very clear that’s exactly what she intends to do.”
Polls: In front and in second place
The AfD is ahead in the polls in all eastern states and is in second place behind the CDU at the federal level. The CDU has ruled out cooperation by party conference resolution. The AfD state associations in Thuringia, Saxony-Anhalt and Saxony are classified as definitely right-wing extremist by the Office for the Protection of the Constitution, and in several other federal states as suspected cases of right-wing extremism.
Baumann rejected this and said of the spokesman for the party’s radical wing, the Thuringian state parliamentary group leader: “Björn Höcke is not a right-wing extremist.” The Office for the Protection of the Constitution is not independent, but rather “a henchman of the interior ministers” from the SPD and CDU. “There is nothing extremist about us. We want to protect the borders and we want to preserve our cultural identity in Germany.”
Pau said that in its work on site, the AfD shows its lack of interest in real politics. “They act as if they were a party of concern. But they don’t care about any real problem. Whether it’s rising rents, whether it’s the question of public transport or the question of social justice.”
Source: Stern
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