Björn Höcke is the election winner in Thuringia – and after his triumph he clashed with an ARD journalist.
The tone for this interview was set from the start. Thuringia’s Prime Minister Bodo Ramelow had barely left the ARD election studio and warned of the rise of right-wing extremism when AfD top candidate Björn Höcke stepped up to the interview table of journalist Gunnar Breske – and the confrontation began.
“They are the party with the most votes on this election night, but they are also classified as definitely right-wing extremist,” Breske stated the facts – obviously to Höcke’s displeasure. “That just had to happen again,” he replied. “That is a fact,” the journalist replied. Höcke then said: “Do we want to talk about it? Please stop stigmatizing me. We are the number one people’s party in Thuringia. You don’t want to classify a third of Thuringian voters as right-wing extremist, do you?”
AfD politician Björn Höcke has his eye on BSW
The two men did not really find common ground as the conversation continued. Höcke left the question of how he wanted to go about becoming prime minister unanswered, instead demanding that the “old parties” should “exercise humility”. Many Thuringians are dissatisfied with the state of democracy because of the “stupid firewall talk and the stupid firewall behavior”, among other things.
As the strongest force, the AfD has the will to invite other parties to talks – Höcke did not say which ones. Sahra Wagenknecht’s BSW is at least a conceivable option, he did, however, suggest. The two parties have a majority in the new state parliament.
If right-wing extremist Höcke and his party actually manage to come to power, they want to restructure the State Office for the Protection of the Constitution, among other things. It should then primarily “investigate industrial espionage” and “not engage in ideological snooping”. The AfD regularly denigrates the democratically legitimated authority as “government protection” and thus tries to declare the classification of the party as “certainly right-wing extremist” in several federal states as suppression of the opposition.
The AfD also wants to take the axe to public broadcasting and terminate the media state contracts. This could cause Mitteldeutscher Rundfunk to have considerable problems continuing to report independently from Thuringia – confrontational and critical interviews in the ARD election studio like last evening could then be a thing of the past.
Sources: (from minute 42), ,
Source: Stern
I have been working in the news industry for over 6 years, first as a reporter and now as an editor. I have covered politics extensively, and my work has appeared in major newspapers and online news outlets around the world. In addition to my writing, I also contribute regularly to 24 Hours World.
