The leader of the German CDU, Friedrich Merz, rules out any form of cooperation with the AfD after the far-right party's result in Sunday's elections in Thuringia and Saxony. "There will be no coalition with the AfD, there will be no cooperation with the AfD," he said in an interview with the German press agency 'Dpa'. In Saxony, the CDU narrowly beat the AfD, but in Thuringia it took fewer votes than the AfD, the leading party in the state.
Sahra Wagenknecht's Alliance (Bsw), which opposes both military aid to Ukraine and the deployment of US missiles in Germany, should also participate in negotiations for the formation of local governments in the two Länder. Bsw is "a largely unknown quantity" to the CDU and, the conservative exponent added, my fellow party members will now explore whether the deputies of the new political force are "ready to participate in the formation of a reasonable government".
Merz rules out contacts with Die Linke, from whose ranks Wagenknecht comes. The negotiations will be led by local leaders, in Saxony Prime Minister Michael Kretschmer, but Merz closes to unsolicited advice from the 'comfort zone' of West Germany which, he stressed, would be considered counterproductive. Ahead of the September 22 elections in Brandenburg, Merz urged voters to abandon the extremes and strengthen the center. "Make sure there are political majorities in the center of the political spectrum," he said.
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