(Bloomberg) — Chancellor Angela Merkel will try to pick up the pieces this week after her party’s flirtation with the far right in eastern Germany led to a political fiasco.
With the small state of Thuringia suddenly dominating politics in Berlin, Merkel and other national leaders of her Christian Democratic Union are now trying to exclude the nationalist Alternative for Germany party, or AfD, from the region’s government. The CDU’s leadership is meeting at 9 a.m. Monday in the capital to chart the way forward.
In an unusual maneuver, Merkel is reaching across the political spectrum and wants to see the anti-capitalist Left party’s Bodo Ramelow return as caretaker premier in Thuringia, Bild am Sonntag reported. That would officially undo the appointment of his predecessor Thomas Kemmerich, who was elected with support from local CDU and AfD lawmakers last week, only to resign Saturday as the fallout threatened Merkel’s national government.
Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, the CDU chairwoman whose position as Merkel’s heir apparent is already wobbling, will have to reassert her authority after the chancellor stepped in to halt the spiraling crisis.
A day after Kramp-Karrenbauer failed to force her party in Thuringia to back an early election in the region, Merkel returned from Africa over the weekend and abruptly fired a government official who’d broken with the party’s line. That met a key demand by the Social Democrats, her coalition partner in Berlin.
Kemmerich’s resignation after three days in office may calm the turmoil only temporarily.
The Social Democrats, whose poll support has reached all-time lows during Merkel’s latest term, backed off threats to leave the coalition if Kemmerich stayed on as state premier. Yet the SPD remains split between the party establishment and leftists who would like to ditch the alliance with Merkel.
Last week’s turmoil also exposed divisions within the CDU. Moderates derided its involvement in the rogue maneuver, while others criticized Merkel’s firing of the government official, CDU member Christian Hirte, the government’s adviser for eastern German affairs.
Messy Dilemma
In Thuringia, a state of 2.2 million people in the formerly communist east, there’s effectively no government. While Merkel’s coalition is pushing for a new election, the state needs a functioning administration to call one.
Kramp-Karrenbauer has failed to sway CDU members in Thuringia to back an early election. Mike Mohring, the CDU state leader, said on Friday that lawmakers in his caucus were “irritated” by Berlin’s demands.
Ramelow, who had headed a government of the Left, the Social Democrats and the Greens since 2014, told Bild newspaper he would make another run for the premiership and demanded the support of the CDU. He said the state legislature could vote to elect a premier during the week of Feb. 24, with a new election after the summer break, according to Bild.
National leaders of all other German parties have refused to work with the AfD, which won its first seats in the national parliament in 2017 on an anti-Merkel platform and is represented in all state legislatures.
The Left won Thuringia’s last regional election in October with 31% of the vote, while the AfD more than doubled its support to 23%. That left traditional parties with little bandwidth to form a governing majority.
–With assistance from Alexander Kell and Arne Delfs.
To contact the reporter on this story: Patrick Donahue in Berlin at [email protected]
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Ben Sills at [email protected], Tony Czuczka
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