Erfurt/Berlin.
Kemmerich, who was once elected prime minister by the AfD, still doesn’t think majorities with the Höcke party are bad.
This week sat Thomas Kemmerich in a show on the Internet channel of the former “Bild” editor-in-chief Julian Reichelt. Among other things, it was about how to deal with an ever stronger AfD.
The Thuringian FDP boss said that it would suit the left camp that AfD votes are de facto worthless in parliaments. But the bourgeois parties should “not be fooled” by this tactic: “We need good political ideas from the center – and if they then find a majority, despite or with the AfD, then the majority is there.”
Also read: Breaking a taboo in Thuringia: Kemmerich’s brown flaw
“Then the majority is there”: That was also the case on February 5, 2020, when Kemmerich voted with the AfD to prime ministers was elected – and accepted the election. The next day he already initiated his resignation. “Democrats need democratic majorities,” he said at the time. Unfortunately, he fell for the “perfidious trick” of the AfD.
Three years later, Kemmerich still leads the state party and the members of the state parliament. And he wants on that state party convention on Saturday to reaffirm its claim to take first place in the state list in the 2024 state elections.
Kemmerich talks like before the “Erfurt dam burst”
He sees the decision of the federal executive board in autumn 2020, which opposed Kemmerich’s renewed top candidacy, as statute-barred. The vote, he told this editorial office, only applied to the new elections to the state parliament that were planned at the time but were later canceled. On the other hand, share them federal party on request with: “The resolution of the Presidium of the FDP of October 9, 2020 applies.”
Kemmerich is talking like before the so-called dam burst in Erfurt. He speaks of the advantages of changing majorities and of the fact that in 2024 the prime minister will be left-wing Bodo Ramelow and to replace its red-red-green minority coalition. He would then prefer to form a coalition with the CDU and SPD. A government with the Greens is “inconceivable” – and not with the Left or AfD anyway.
Kemmerich: Coordination with the AfD is not cooperation
The fact that there is no majority for his desired alliance does not bother him. A lot can still happen before the state elections, he says. And if not, just have to Linke and Green do what the CDU and occasionally its FDP are doing now: vote for the bills of the minority government.
Also read:Comment on foundation funding: Give the AfD money – even if it hurts
As far as the AfD is concerned, Kemmerich stands by his statement on the talk show. However, he asks to be quoted in full: “As always, I have said clearly that I exclude any cooperation with the AfD.” A vote with the group led by Björn Höcke – even if they were last to enforce a law against red-red -Green led – don’t be a collaboration.
The Thuringia FDP stands by Thomas Kemmerich
Kemmerich seems to be covered by a political layer of Teflon. The fact that he accepted his election through the AfD, that he appeared at a sometimes extreme demonstration during the pandemic and that he lost his seat on the Erfurt city council in court and that the FDP lost its parliamentary group status: he let all of this roll off his feet.
The Thuringian liberals have twice confirmed Kemmerich as head of state since the great debacle of 2020. In this respect, the Prime Minister can a. D. doesn’t care that the left, SPD or Greens are now criticizing him again outraged: his Thuringian party stands by him.
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