The centre-right CDU party recently caused quite a stir in the German city of Leipzig by putting up Arabic and Turkish-language election posters.
The party, which under Chancellor Angela Merkel, was responsible for initiating an open-border policy that let millions of migrants into Europe, has been lambasting the current leftist Berlin government for its own lax migration measures.
Even in Leipzig, the CDU put up election campaign posters demanding a “U-turn in migration policies.”
Yet citizens of Leipzig were bemused by some of the other CDU posters in the city. As conservative publication Junge Freiheit reports, in sharp contrast to its supposedly tough line on migration, the party seems to be pandering to migrant voters by putting up posters in Arabic and Turkish in one of the immigrant-majority parts of the city. The posters read: “Let’s make this district safe together.”
According to the party’s press officer, the billboards have nothing to do with the CDU’s regional headquarters and are the products of the local association, which is responsible for running its own campaign. Parallel to European elections on June 9th, some German states, including Saxony, are holding local elections. While members of the CDU’s youth organisation are apparently unhappy about the foreign language campaign, Lucas Schopphoven, CDU candidate for Leipzig city council defended the posters, saying it is appropriate to address the intended target group in a problematic, unsafe part of the city.
However, the local CDU initiative backfired spectacularly. All 400 posters were either vandalised or stolen by Monday morning. “I have been campaigning since 1990. But I have never experienced such an attack,” district party chairman Andreas Nowak said, adding that “left-wing extremists” may have been responsible for vandalising the posters as no leftist party campaign posters were harmed in the area.
With regards to why the CDU felt it necessary to convey its message in Arabic and Turkish, he said: “If, for whatever reason, a significant number of people live in the area who don’t yet speak German or don’t speak German well enough, then we tell them what we expect from them in three languages.” He emphasised that the posters had been developed in cooperation with immigrant tradesmen who are worried about criminal activities in the district.
