Wagenknecht escalates: How does the Thuringia drama end?

Wagenknecht escalates: How does the Thuringia drama end?

Sahra Wagenknecht obviously wants to prevent a coalition of the CDU, BSW and SPD in Thuringia. The AfD could benefit once again.

The man who wants to become Prime Minister of Thuringia is called Mario Voigt, is 47 years old and a member of the CDU. And he has to solve the most complex task in German politics at the moment. No matter what he does, the federal political impact is likely to be immense.

Voigt is planning something that has never happened before and that many in the political world consider almost impossible. He wants to form a joint government with an artificially constructed and politically volatile electoral association that bears the name of a former left-wing politician. What’s more: It would be a coalition that, even with the votes of the third partner, the SPD, only had 44 out of 88 votes, so it would not have a reliable majority.

In addition, Voigt has to take into account a number of factors, some of which work against each other – and this while the federal election campaign is looming. There is, for example, his CDU, on whose federal executive committee he sits, and large parts of which categorically reject an alliance with the BSW. Or there is the AfD in Thuringia, led by right-wing extremist Björn Höcke, which has the largest parliamentary group and a blocking minority in the state parliament.

At the same time, Voigt has to take into account an injured SPD that has barely made it into the state parliament. He even has to somehow involve the left with the current Prime Minister Bodo Ramelow, whose abstentions he needed in the state parliament, without affecting his federal party’s delimitation decision.

Meanwhile, Voigt is required to at least think about the negotiations in Saxony, where the CDU and SPD face similar, if not quite as complicated, tasks. Voigt is also in contact with Brandenburg, where the SPD wants to govern with the BSW.

Wagenknecht as the final opponent of the CDU

Finally, and above all else, there is the final opponent for a coalition: Sahra Wagenknecht. The founder, chairwoman and namesake of the BSW fears that pragmatic compromises in the states could counteract her fundamentally oppositional strategy at the federal level. That’s why she prefers not to participate in government, especially not in Thuringia. Instead, there should be informal tolerance of a CDU-led minority government.

Of course Wagenknecht doesn’t say that out loud. Now that she no longer calls herself a communist, she also wants to shed her image as the best-known professional opposition figure in German politics.

The BSW regional associations emancipate themselves

But Wagenknecht has taken precautions. During the election campaign, she single-handedly formulated foreign policy conditions that she knew would be difficult for the CDU and SPD to accept. A future state government with BSW participation should speak out against arms deliveries to Ukraine and the stationing of US missiles in Germany.

These demands now serve as a potential exit clause for Wagenknecht. But as expected, the three state associations, which now have their own state parliamentary groups, are beginning to emancipate themselves from the party headquarters and their authoritarian chairmen. The MPs have mandates for five years and have the prospect of sharing power, including positions. The federal election campaign is not a priority for them.

As a result, the BSW has sorted itself out like the Thuringian state parliament: There is a kind of power political stalemate between Berlin and Erfurt.

Last Friday, Wagenknecht ensured that the commitment she demanded for peace negotiations with Russia and against the deployment must be made before coalition talks. Afterwards, she had to watch as the Thuringian state leader Katja Wolf had the document negotiated with the CDU and SPD unanimously passed by the state executive board as a “reserve resolution”.

This means: If the CDU, BSW and SPD agree on a formulaic compromise on war and weapons that does not question the Federal Republic’s ties to the West and solidarity with Ukraine, coalition talks would begin immediately. And that can happen very quickly.

A basis for this is the peace-motivated text that Voigt published in the “FAZ” at the beginning of October together with the heads of government of Saxony and Brandenburg, Michael Kretschmer (CDU) and Dietmar Woidke (SPD). In addition, the future coalition should reiterate that there is no room for US missiles in Thuringia – which is at best a symbolic statement of fact given the Two Plus Four Treaty, which excludes stationing throughout East Germany.

For the CDU it is about two prime ministerial positions

Wolf and Voigt agree internally that they want to form a coalition. And the Social Democrats have also gotten used to governing in Erfurt since 2009. But as was the case after the state elections in 2019, how Berlin reacts will be crucial. Or purely ruled.

The well-founded resistance that the Erfurt compromise is likely to trigger in the Union would probably not stop the negotiations. CDU leader Friedrich Merz is aware that the two prime ministerships in Erfurt and Dresden depend on an agreement – and that in case of doubt the alternative is AfD.

The situation in the BSW is much more conflict-ridden. Wagenknecht escalated her rhetoric again at the weekend. She told “Spiegel”: “After Friedrich Merz’s appalling speech in the Bundestag this week, in which he actually called for Germany to enter the war against Russia, we can only enter into coalitions with his party if the state government is clear about such positions demarcated.”

AfD is waiting for the so-called old parties to fail

The reflexes failed, as Wagenknecht wanted. Voigt referred to his deputy Christian Hirte, who described Wagenknecht’s demands as “increasingly adventurous”. The Parliamentary Managing Director of the Union in the Bundestag, Thorsten Frei, even called Wagenknecht’s behavior on RTL “shabby”. And the new SPD general secretary Matthias Miersch declared in the “Main-Post”: “We will not pursue politics by allowing ourselves to be blackmailed.”

But the problem is: This is exactly how Wagenknecht conducts politics – although she has to be careful that she not only divides the CDU, but also her own party. Meanwhile, the AfD, like five years ago, is patiently waiting for the moment of failure of the so-called old parties. Then she would make a grand gesture inviting people to talks or simply request the election of the Prime Minister.

The election would be secret. And the likely AfD candidate: Björn Höcke.

Source: Stern

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