Kretschmer: Strategically prevent populists from gaining power

Saxony's Minister President Michael Kretschmer (CDU) has called on voters of established parties to vote for his party in the state elections on September 1 in order to prevent populists from coming to power. "If you want this country to have stability, then you have to vote strategically in this election," he said in the interview series "Frühstart" on RTL/ntv. The CDU is the only party that has the chance to form a government and has shown that it can do so.

He does not believe that many people will change their minds before the election. "We have to succeed in the medium and long term, because that is the only way we can preserve democracy." In Saxony, an Infratest survey recently put the AfD in first place with 30 percent, just ahead of the CDU with 29 percent.

Kretschmer: Federal government puts country at the mercy of populists

Kretschmer is convinced that the miserable mood has to do with specific unresolved issues: Migration, dealing with Russia, "but above all this overbearing state, the high energy costs that are scaring people". Kretschmer believes the federal government is responsible. "It is handing the country over to the populists." Instead of working through the agenda, "it is opening up marginal issues, wokeness issues", demanding a commitment to democracy or cosmopolitanism. If the traffic light system were to solve the problems "that are the most pressing from the population's point of view, then populism would be deprived of its breeding ground", he said.

A coalition or cooperation with the AfD after the state elections is still not an option for Kretschmer. And with the Sarah Wagenknecht Alliance (BSW), "we don't know what they want". The program is "a bit of a grab bag, a black box". The fact that many people are projecting their expectations onto this party is "also an expression of this uncertainty and the search for alternatives".