Discontent in the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD): The Social Democrats are deeply concerned about the election of two politicians from the “Alternative for Germany” (AfG) as President and Vice President of the Saxony-Anhalt state parliament. Tobias Rausch and Hans-Thomas Tilschneider were elected with more votes than their party's parliamentary group, whose local branch in Saxony-Anhalt has been declared "proven extremist".
The tension within the SPD is also affecting relations with its coalition partner the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) at the federal level.
Who else supported Tobias Rausch?
The new president of the Magdeburg state parliament, Tobias Rausch, was elected with 48 votes - 4 more than the Alternative for Germany and the Sarah Wagenknecht Union combined. The CDU parliamentary group leadership had recommended that its 15 MPs abstain from voting, but only five of them abstained. According to the MDR, one CDU MP was absent from the meeting. Since the vote was secret, it is not clear who supported the AfD candidate.
The parliamentary groups of the SPD, the "Greens" and the "Left" had announced that they would vote against Rausch - they have a total of 24 seats in the Landtag. The votes "against" were 29. In the election of deputy chairmen, the SPD candidate failed to prevail - he received only 33 votes "for" and 48 MPs voted "against". In contrast, the CDU candidate Carsten Borchert was elected deputy chairman.
The chairman of the CDU/CSU parliamentary group in the Bundestag, Thorsten Frei, was categorical that he would not speculate on the subject, but still described this development as extremely worrying. And the leader of the CDU Friedrich Merz has not yet commented on the issue.
Is the cordon sanitaire around the AfD collapsing?
The party “Sarah Wagenknecht Union” declared the so-called cordon sanitaire around the “Alternative for Germany” (an unspoken agreement between the main political parties not to work with the AfD – ed. note). The Greens, on the other hand, see a “gradual normalization of the far-right”.
The cordon sanitaire could also be a topic at the meeting of the coalition committee of the CDU/CSU and the SPD tonight in Berlin. The meeting is not a reaction to the events in Saxony-Anhalt, but is taking place as scheduled after the three-month summer break. The focus is on the upcoming reforms, but the Social Democrats have already signaled that they will seek an exchange of views on the issue of Saxony-Anhalt.