Spahn: Won't be better with Reichinnek than with Honecker - CDU's Spahn rejects AfD and Left Party alliances ahead of critical state elections
In 2018, the CDU ruled out cooperation with the AfD and the Left Party by party conference resolution. But does the firewall hold both ways? Parliamentary group leader Spahn has sent a clear message.
CDU/CSU parliamentary group leader Jens Spahn used the party conference in Stuttgart to firmly reject any cooperation with the AfD and the Left Party. In his speech, he accused the Left of harboring "anti-Semites in its front ranks" and continuing to advocate socialism in its platform. "That is why cooperation is out of the question."
Berlin's Left Party dismissed Spahn as a "bizarre mix of the old SED and the new Hamas," while also launching a personal attack on Left Party parliamentary group leader Heidi Reichinnek: "Let me tell you—tattoos, TikTok, in the end, things won't be any better with Comrade Reichinnek than they were with Comrade Honecker." Erich Honecker served as the East German head of state and general secretary of the Socialist Unity Party (SED) during the 1970s and 1980s.
Spahn on the AfD: "They have completely lost their way"
Spahn accused the AfD of being too close to Russia and engaging in nepotism. "They have completely lost their way." Referring to the party's hiring of family members, he said: "This is cronyism, a betrayal of the fatherland, a betrayal of the taxpayer. You cannot govern with this crowd."
At its 2018 party conference, the CDU excluded coalitions and "similar forms of cooperation" with the Left Party and the AfD. However, recent polls suggest that after the upcoming elections in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania and Saxony-Anhalt, no governing majority may be possible without either the AfD or the Left Party.
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