While ruling left-liberal coalition pursues economic, social, and foreign policies diametrically opposed to German interests—and as the inexorably divided right-wing opposition remains powerless to oppose their ruinous agenda—one prominent member of the establishment Christlich Demokratische Union Deutschlands (CDU) has spoken out against the cordon sanitaire against the Alternative für Deutschland (AfD).
Thuringia’s CDU state MP and former parliamentary group leader Mike Mohring, in an interview with a regional newspaper over the weekend, argued that it makes little sense to “exaggerate the AfD through in parliamentary terms by excluding it without it having to prove itself in terms of content,” the Berlin-based Junge Freiheit reports.
“We waste hours of every plenary session by not electing AfD MPs to the bodies that are based on their relative strength,” Mohring continued, adding that current arrangement allows the AfD to “point their finger at the state parliament and claim that their rights are being curtailed.”
Presently, in the Thuringian state parliament, the AfD is the third-largest political party, behind the Die Linke and the CDU. However, according to the latest opinion polls, if elections were held today the AfD would become the largest party, garnering 24% of the vote, ahead of Die Linke at 23% and CDU at 19%.
As The European Conservative recently reported, the national-conservative, anti-globalist AfD is now the strongest political force in East Germany, most likely due to the fact that it has been the only party that has opposed economic sanctions imposed against Russia—sanctions which continue to wreak havoc on the German economy.
Predictably, Mohring’s comments drew censure from Germany’s left-wing. Katharina König-Preuss, a member of the Die Linke party in the Erfurt state parliament, took to social media to criticize Mohring and his party, claiming that the CDU has “no firewall to the Right.”
Regardless of Mohring’s comments—and despite the criticism he received for them—the CDU’s federal leadership, perhaps to their own detriment, has repeatedly made it clear that they are vehemently opposed to any kind of cooperation with the AfD.
In December of last year, Friedrich Merz, while running for the CDU’s chairmanship, said that under his leadership anyone working alongside the AfD would be promptly expelled from the party.
“I tell everyone who is concerned, in the north and in the south, in the west and in the east, that we have ruled out this cooperation,” adding that any time “this boundary is exceeded, there will be immediate consequences.”
“There will be no shift to the right in the Union with me now. There will be no axis shift The Union cannot and will not be guided by what the AfD says or does.”
Merz now serves as the leader of the CDU.
