No distance to AfD candidate?
Klingbeil criticizes CDU behavior in district elections
05/15/2023 9:39 p.m
Are the other parties in the dispute with the AfD allies or competitors? This question comes up again and again, most recently in a district election in Brandenburg. Even the party leaders Klingbeil and Merz clash.
SPD leader Lars Klingbeil has sharply criticized the behavior of the CDU in the district elections in the Oder-Spree district in Brandenburg. “There was no election recommendation from the CDU on this issue,” he said in Berlin. “Actually, I always assumed that there was a consensus among the democratic parties that we would not expand the AfD’s scope, that we would position ourselves clearly, that we would keep the firewall up against the AfD.”
In the runoff election, SPD mayor Frank Steffen narrowly won against AfD candidate Rainer Galla on Sunday. The Greens and Left had called for the SPD candidate to be elected after Galla took first place ahead of Steffen in the first ballot in mid-April. However, the CDU had not positioned itself locally or at the state level and “especially not through Friedrich Merz at the federal level”, criticized Klingbeil. “I can only appeal to the Union to stop playing with fire and to ensure that the firewall against the right continues to exist at every point,” said the SPD leader.
The CDU party leader Merz then accused Klingbeil of spreading untruths and poisoning the political climate. “There was a clear recommendation from the CDU – the district association, the district chairman, the district council candidate – to choose the SPD candidate on the spot,” Merz told Welt-TV.
The district chairman of the CDU Oder-Spree, André Schaller, described the CDU statement differently than party leader Merz. “We definitely spoke out for Steffen. There was a clear positioning for him.” However, this was not done via an election recommendation from the district association, but by various representatives of the district association. Schaller named himself and the CDU district administrator candidate Sascha Gehm, who was defeated in the first ballot, and who also took a position on social media for the election of Steffen. The district association itself had launched an election appeal so that as many citizens as possible made use of their right to vote. “We have responsible people. I also put up with criticism, but I have faith in people,” said the CDU district chairman.