Accordingly, some politicians are considering leaving the group and setting up their own parliamentary group. According to the group members, whether this happens depends primarily on the behavior of the acting Prime Minister Sven Schulze. Some MPs have already called for his resignation.
According to the report, Marco Tullner, former education minister, is said to have spoken openly about a possible exit: “I am at least thinking about the fact that that is an option,” said Tullner. He complained about a lack of trust in the group: "If these conflict situations do not improve, I would reflect on myself at the end of the year and think about how we can react to this. And all options are open."
According to Tullner, he is not alone: “I think, from the way I look at people’s faces, that I’m not the only one who deals with such questions.” Another CDU parliamentary group member, who wished to remain anonymous, confirmed the MDR's corresponding thoughts from individual colleagues. Schulze lacks authority in the group, the member explained: “By reaching for the group chairmanship, he has deeply divided the group, and he cannot heal this division.”
According to the report, the anonymous CDU parliamentary group member is not sure whether Schulze's resignation could even lead to the faction getting back together. “It won’t work without Schulze’s resignation,” it continues.
According to MDR, the trigger for the tensions was a parliamentary group meeting after the state elections on September 6th. Schulze surprisingly had himself elected as the new parliamentary group leader. With eight votes to seven, he prevailed against the previous parliamentary group leader Guido Heuer. From Tullner's point of view, it would have made more sense to reorganize as a parliamentary group only after the prime minister election. This is planned for December.
How fragile the group's cohesion is was also shown by the election of the state parliament president on Tuesday. Schulze had announced that the group would abstain. Nevertheless, the AfD candidate Tobias Rausch was elected. He is the first AfD politician to lead the state parliament in Germany.
Rausch was elected as the first AfD state parliament president in Germany on Tuesday with 48 yes votes. AfD and BSW come together in the state parliament, but only for 44 seats. Because the election was secret, it is unclear from which ranks the additional votes came. Rausch himself had stated that he was also expecting votes from the CDU.
A total of five abstentions in the election also suggests that less than half of the members of the CDU parliamentary group followed Schulze's recommendation. After the CDU plummeted to 17.2 percent of the vote in the state election, Schulze was only narrowly confirmed as CDU parliamentary group leader in a competitive vote.
CDU federal parliamentary group vice-president Sepp Müller also criticized the approach. It was a mistake for the CDU parliamentary group leader in the state parliament to publicly recommend that his party colleagues abstain in the election of the state parliament president in advance, said Müller in an interview with MDR Aktuell. Schulze did this “even though colleagues in the state parliament had apparently already announced at the parliamentary group meeting that they would vote against it.”
