2023-09-15 12:55:16
The Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and the Liberal Party have unleashed a political storm and a shower of criticism this Friday for relying on the populists of the Alternative for Germany (AfD) to impose a tax reduction law in the Thuringian Parliament and thus break the firewall erected by all democratic forces to isolate the extreme right.
A political maneuver that takes place when the leader of the AfD in that federal state, the controversial Björn Höcke, has just been called to trial for using National Socialist vocabulary in his rallies and when this formation is permanently observed in said region by the internal services of intelligence as it is clearly considered far-right.
The vote this Thursday night in the Thuringian Parliament “was not an accident”, since the CDU “has intentionally agreed to impose a political decision that would not have been possible without the votes of the AfD”, Kevin Kühnert, secretary, said today. general of the Social Democratic Party (SPD), who warned that “as this becomes a lesson in the CDU, parliamentarism will be different from today. “Democrats cannot allow AfD to become the determining force in a chamber.”
The conservative opposition managed, with the support of liberal and ultranationalist deputies, to impose a reduction in the property transfer tax against the will of the minority government formed by the tripartite of social democrats, greens and The Left, tolerated by the CDU.
“Political taboo”
“This vote was the breaking of a very special political taboo,” said the SPD’s parliamentary organization secretary, Katja Mast, for whom the session in the Thuringia regional chamber “was a terrible night, as we talked about collaborating.” with Höcke’s far-right AfD.
Criticism of the Thuringian conservatives has extended to the party’s leadership at the national level. The leadership of the Greens openly wonders if the word of Friedrich Merz, president of the CDU, is valid, after he recently reiterated that the Christian Democrats will “never” collaborate with the extreme right. “This is a drastic deviation that goes beyond the borders of Thuringia” and that Merz “has tolerated,” said the general secretary of the environmental party, Emily Brüning.
The one who washes his hands despite the fact that his co-religionists in the Erfurt Parliament also supported the reform of the law at the proposal of the CDU together with the AfD is the president of the liberals and federal Minister of Finance, Christian Lindner. “It was an initiative of the CDU,” recalled Lindner, who nevertheless acknowledged that what happened “has not been a good sign” for the common front of the democratic parties against the xenophobic and anti-European Alternative for Germany.
On the contrary, the president of the AfD, Alice Weidel, considers what happened a triumph for her party as it ends its marginalization by the conservatives. “The Merz firewall is history and Thuringia is just the beginning,” said Weidel on X, the old Twitter, in which she stressed that “it is time to heed the democratic will of citizens throughout Germany. “That’s why you have to vote AfD.”
The political slippage of the conservatives is especially relevant because it occurred in the region of Germany where the most radical far-rightists are strongest. Its leader and ideologist Björn Höcke, head of the AfD parliamentary group in Thuringia, was denounced this Wednesday by the Halle prosecutor’s office before the local court for using symbols of anti-constitutional and terrorist organizations, in reference to Adolf Hitler’s National Socialist Party.
Höcke is accused of using the phrase “Everything for Germany” during a rally of his party in Merseburg in May 2021, despite knowing that this formula was the motto of the SA, the storm troopers and brown shirts of the Nazi party. . The controversial politician and historian is subject to permanent observation by Germany’s internal intelligence services, considering that he pursues openly anti-constitutional goals and objectives.
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