2024-08-26 18:55:17
The SPD fails to clear the five percent hurdle? What has long been unthinkable can become reality in Saxony and Thuringia. The CDU is concerned.
A few days before the state elections in Saxony and Thuringia, CDU politicians have expressed concern about the SPD’s possible failure to clear the five percent hurdle. “The fact that the SPD could miss out on entering the state parliaments of Saxony and Thuringia is no reason for us to gloat,” said the parliamentary manager of the Union faction, Thorsten Frei (CDU), to the “Tagesspiegel”.
“As a people’s party, the SPD played a central role in the stability of our political system. Our country was very successful when the people’s parties CDU/CSU and SPD fought each other for power,” added Frei. However, the SPD had “largely lost contact with voters, not only in Saxony and Thuringia.”
Former CDU General Secretary Ruprecht Polenz described a possible failure of the SPD to clear the five percent hurdle as an “absolute catastrophe.” The SPD is a party “with great services to our country. We cannot do without it.”
The CDU has different political priorities and ideas than the SPD or the Greens, “but we are all democrats who are fighting for the best solutions for our country,” said CDU MEP Dennis Radtke to the “Tagesspiegel”. “The AfD and BSW, on the other hand, want a different country.”
New state parliaments will be elected in Saxony and Thuringia on Sunday. According to a survey conducted by the opinion research institute Insa on behalf of “Bild am Sonntag”, the AfD is in the lead in both states. Government majorities without the participation of the far-right party or the Sahra Wagenknecht (BSW) coalition are therefore not possible in either state parliament. The SPD received six percent in Saxony and Thuringia in the survey.