Kühnert: CDU in eastern Germany leads to strengthening of the AfD

SPD General Secretary Kevin Kühnert has accused the CDU of strengthening the AfD with its course in view of the upcoming state elections in eastern Germany. "I have never understood why the CDU, for example in Thuringia, rules out any cooperation with the left-wing parties just as much as with the far-right and anti-democratic AfD," Kühnert told the Rheinische Post newspaper (Monday). "This means that the state government is barely able to act. The enemies of democracy are feasting," said the SPD General Secretary.

"With its strategy to date, the CDU has achieved the opposite of what it claims to want," said Kühnert. "It is paralyzing parliament and providing Höcke with argumentative fodder for his contempt for democracy," he said with regard to the Thuringian state party and parliamentary group leader Björn Höcke. In Thuringia, Minister President Bodo Ramelow (Left Party) is currently leading a minority government of the Left Party, SPD and Greens. The government is opposed by an almost equally strong CDU and AfD parliamentary group. State elections will be held in Thuringia, Saxony and Brandenburg in 2024.