Katja Wolf: No fear of governing

Eisenach's Lord Mayor Katja Wolf is not afraid of government responsibility as a member of the new Sahra Wagenknecht (BSW) alliance. She is not afraid of it, she told the newspaper "Freies Wort". As mayor of Eisenach since 2012, she knows what government action means: "I have responsibility for a medium-sized administrative organization, that's not foreign to me, and I'm happy to do it. However, that explicitly does not mean that I aspire to a particular office," she told the newspaper. "It rather means that I am convinced that we are people who could govern."

Wolf had surprisingly announced her switch from the Left Party to the BSW a few weeks ago and signaled that she wanted to run for the Thuringian state parliament. A new state parliament will be elected in the Free State on September 1, and BSW already wants to run in the election.

In the interview with "Freies Wort", Wolf again justified her decision with the danger of a strong AfD. "That may sound pathetic, but it really is true: I'm afraid that the AfD could come into government after the state elections or that Höcke could even become prime minister. This has really been bothering me for months," she told the newspaper. We must at least try to regain the political trust of as many people as possible "and thus prevent the AfD from taking power", she said.

Turingia's Prime Minister Bodo Ramelow (Left Party) had offered Wolf the chance to join his election campaign team two and a half weeks ago and held out the prospect of a ministerial post. However, the 47-year-old declined. When asked whether she had received similar offers from Ramelow's opponent Mario Voigt (CDU), she said: "I haven't discussed it with either of them and I won't discuss it with either of them before the election."