Schwerdtner demands end of CDU's incompatibility decision regarding The Left - Left Party leader slams CDU's alliance ban as 'childish' obstacle
Left Party leader Ines Schwerdtner has called on the CDU to abandon its ban on cooperation with the Left ahead of the party's conference in Stuttgart, dismissing the policy as a "fig leaf" to avoid progressive social reforms.
In an interview with the newspapers of Germany's Redaktionsnetzwerk Deutschland (RND) published Friday, Schwerdtner accused the CDU of using the exclusionary rule as "above all, a pretext for not having to pursue social policies." She also criticized the blanket rejection of any collaboration with the Left Party as "childish."
Schwerdtner argued that the ban "ties the CDU's own hands," urging the Union parties to change course. "Cutting support for those at the bottom while sparing the wealthy is making policy for the few, not the majority," she said, directing her criticism at both the CDU and its Bavarian sister party, the CSU. She pointed to proposals tabled for the CDU conference—including plans to weaken job protection, lower pensions, and reduce sickness benefits—as evidence of "austerity politics" for which the Left remains the CDU's "biggest opponent in the Bundestag."
Recent opinion polls suggest that after September's state elections in Saxony-Anhalt and Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, no majority in either parliament will be possible without either the far-right AfD or the Left Party. If the CDU maintains its refusal to work with the Left, this could make it impossible to form a democratic governing coalition in those states.
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