Dhe President of the Thuringian Association of Municipalities and Cities Michael Brychcy (CDU) does not want to categorically rule out talks with the AfD. “Not everyone in this party is fascist,” he told MDR Thuringia on Friday. But you can’t talk to those who are extremist, he told the German Press Agency. “I would not sit down at a table with Höcke and his right-wing troops,” said Brychcy, who is mayor in Waltershausen (Gotha district).
The Thuringian AfD with its state party and parliamentary group leader Björn Höcke is classified as proven right-wing extremist and observed by the State Office for the Protection of the Constitution.
Mast: To flirt with cooperation is extremely dangerous
Brychcy said you need to differentiate more about who you’re talking to. “It doesn’t help us if we keep talking about not talking to the AfD,” he said. “There are no red, green, black or yellow potholes in my city. But there is a pothole and people expect that we can get over it.” Nevertheless, there are “sufficient right-wing tendencies within the AfD. I don’t want anything to do with them at all. We can’t deal with them either.”
The chairman of the CDU Schwerin, Jascha Dopp, had told the FAZ that the CDU “could not work together” with a party “in which right-wing extremists are tolerated or even encouraged”. With the former radio presenter and current member of the Bundestag Leif-Erik Holm, there is an AfD candidate in the mayoral runoff in Schwerin on June 18 for the first time in a German state capital. After their candidate was eliminated in the first ballot, the local CDU decided on Monday evening to submit a recommendation for the SPD candidate and incumbent Rico Badenschier.
The parliamentary manager of the SPD parliamentary group, Katja Mast, told the dpa that she thinks it is “very dangerous to flirt with cooperation with the AfD – especially in Thuringia.” CDU member. “What is happening here is the opposite of a clear demarcation from the AfD.”
The parliamentary group leader of the left in the Thuringian state parliament, Steffen Dittes, accused Brychcy of “continuously paving the way for a proven extreme right-wing party”. On Sunday, the district council elections in Sonneberg in southern Thuringia will be the next test.
Within the Thuringian CDU, there have always been voices in the past that spoke out in favor of at least partial cooperation with the AfD – even after the 2019 state elections, the results of which resulted in an extremely difficult government formation. A CDU federal party convention decision prohibits any cooperation between the Christian Democrats and the AfD and the left. CDU faction leader Mario Voigt has also been strictly against any cooperation with the AfD for years. In Thuringia, the CDU faction in the state parliament does not support any AfD motions. Conversely, CDU motions have already found a majority with the help of AfD votes.
Brychcy is also critical of possible joint action by the CDU and AfD in the state parliament. “I’m talking about the AfD party, not the parliamentary group,” said Brychcy. But you can’t lump everyone who is in the AfD together.
