Schwerin. The national leadership of Germany's CDU party is struggling to gain traction in its efforts to strengthen its presence in rural eastern Germany and counter the far-right AfD.
Germany's CDU struggles as rural anti-AfD program stumbles before key elections
A structural coordinator appointed under the party's "White Spots" program by the Konrad Adenauer Foundation in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania has left the post just weeks after starting, Der Spiegel reports.
A CDU spokesperson confirmed that the employment relationship had been terminated, stating that the individual was no longer working for the party. Citing privacy protections, she declined to provide further details on the reasons behind the departure.
CDU General Secretary Carsten Linnemann announced the initiative last autumn following a leadership retreat, framing it as an effort to stabilize and rebuild party structures. The Christian Democrats initially selected Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania and Saxony-Anhalt as pilot regions. Both states are set to hold parliamentary elections in September, with polls showing the AfD consistently above 30 percent.
While Linnemann had initially set January 1 as the program's launch date, the two coordinators—one for each state—only began work at CDU offices in Schwerin and Magdeburg in early March. The coordinator for Saxony-Anhalt remains in the training phase, but his counterpart in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania was dismissed during the probationary period. The CDU has stated that the position will be filled again.
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