SPD general secretary criticizes distance from the electorate, CDU warns against AfD cooperation

SPD General Secretary Tim Klüssendorf admits that his party is too far away from the voters. “Over many years, the SPD has become – let me say this harshly – a technocratic party,” Klüssendorf told the newspapers of the Funke media group. Most recently, the AfD has established closeness to voters, “which we actually have to offer, want to offer and will create again in the future,” said the SPD politician.

The AfD admitted that Klüssendorf would be successful in precisely this area. The party “organized a presence digitally and analogue, spoke the same language, complained a lot together and created projection surfaces”. He himself learned in election campaigns, on market squares and from front gardens to prefabricated buildings: "Getting people's trust back in us is very, very hard work" and only works in direct conversation.

The SPD is “excellently knowledgeable about procedures and processes,” but the distance between federal politics and people has grown. Therefore, she has to work on her language, appearance and visibility in cities and villages.

The chairman of the CDU workers' wing (CDA), Dennis Radtke, warns of the downfall of his party if he cooperates with the AfD after the state elections in Saxony-Anhalt. “The moment we work with this party and make it responsible, the CDU is broken,” said Radtke on Thursday evening on the ZDF program “maybrit illner”. “That just has to be clear to everyone.”

With regard to efforts within the CDU parliamentary group in the Magdeburg state parliament for a coalition with the AfD, Radke urgently warned: “Whoever wants that and whoever goes through with something like that” is giving the AfD what it wants. The social politician appealed to the responsibility of his party friends in Saxony-Anhalt, including the federal CDU. “Responsibility for the big picture” “doesn’t stop at your own town entrance sign,” he warned.

Radtke still believes the so-called firewall is “right”. The CDU cannot be obliged to “talk and negotiate with a party that is diametrically opposed to what Christian Democratic DNA is,” he said.

The AfD is not a “CDU of the past”, but “from day one” an anti-European, anti-Western and pro-Russian party. “We have nothing in common with these people.” In the course of this, Radtke reiterated his party's fundamental decision, on the basis of which the CDU rules out cooperation with both the AfD and the Left Party.

At the same time, he sharply criticized CDU Chancellor Friedrich Merz. “I simply differentiate between state politics and federal politics,” said the theater maker, who was born in Dessau (Saxony-Anhalt). The problems would be solved by the parties in Saxony-Anhalt. “Merz is really no more necessary for this than a snail in hurdle racing.”

During his second election campaign visit to Saxony-Anhalt, Chancellor Merz once again warned of the consequences of a possible AfD state government. “Anyone who wants Germany to remain an open and liberal country, and anyone who wants Saxony-Anhalt to remain an interesting location that is also interesting in Europe, should not vote for the AfD on Sunday,” he said in Leuna in Saxony-Anhalt.

As was the case during the CDU leader's first election campaign appearance in Quedlinburg, there was no direct contact with voters, apart from a few employees at the refinery. Merz only met with the management and the works council.

The Protestant parish of Wardenburg near Oldenburg (Lower Saxony) has asked a volunteer to resign from her church positions because she supports her partner's election campaign for the AfD. Church spokesman Dirk-Michael Grötzsch confirmed the event to the Evangelical Press Service (epd). The Oldenburg “Nordwest Zeitung” first reported. The decisive factor is “the ongoing proactive and public support of the AfD election campaign as well as the refusal to distance oneself from the AfD’s inhumane and inhumane statements,” said Grötzsch. This is in stark contrast to the basic beliefs of the church community.

According to the “Nordwest Zeitung”, the woman left the church after being asked to stop her volunteer work. Your partner is therefore running for the local council in Wardenburg. The local elections in Lower Saxony will take place on September 13th.

CDU top candidate Sven Schulze explains the decision paper to exclude all toleration models with the left as an individual opinion. The largest CDU district association in the Harz had discussed it. The document is available to WELT. “That is the opinion of a single party member,” Schulze told “Stern”. “That has not been decided and is not a basis for discussion in the next few days.” The draft resolution is about excluding all models of toleration with the Left party. All “exploratory, coalition or toleration models” are categorically rejected. The CDU should not end up “in a permanent supplicant or dependent role towards the left”. However, the paper was not passed. The Harz district association is one of the particularly conservative ones in Saxony-Anhalt.

According to a report in the news magazine “Der Spiegel”, there have been 30 attacks and obstructions against media workers at AfD events since May in the ongoing state election campaign in Saxony-Anhalt. At least 43 journalists, TV teams and political influencers were affected, the magazine reported on Thursday, with reference to the German Union of Journalists (dju) within the Verdi union. The spectrum of intimidation ranges from verbal defamation and targeted obstruction of work to stalking and physical attacks, which were recorded in five cases.

A few days before the state elections in Saxony-Anhalt, a fake election survey is spreading on social networks. The graphic shows 46 percent for the AfD and gives the impression that the party could achieve an absolute majority of state parliament seats on Sunday. The opinion research institute Insa and the “Mitteldeutsche Zeitung” are named as the authors. Both reject this. "This is fake. This doesn't come from us," said Insa boss Hermann Binkert to the "Mitteldeutsche Zeitung". The newspaper is considering legal action. It is unclear who is behind the fake survey.

The exchange of blows between seven top candidates from Saxony-Anhalt was wild. The Green Sziborra-Seidlitz in particular attacked Siegmund. Finally, irritations also became clear between the AfD and BSW. Read more here.