For Anne Will, the analysis of the state elections in Saxony-Anhalt resulted in a heated discussion about different sensitivities in East and West. Green leader Robert Habeck and AfD spokesman Tino Chrupalla clashed particularly hard.
The first assessments were made in a well-tempered tone. Hesse’s Prime Minister Volker Bouffier was happy about a “very nice evening” for the CDU and the clearer than expected distance to the second-placed AfD.
Deutschlandradio journalist Nadine Lindner recognized a new pattern in the east in the context of the last state elections in Saxony, Brandenburg and Thuringia: there is always a “strong party of prime ministers”, then the AfD and finally “the dwarfs”.
She also pointed out, however, that around 21 percent are “not nothing” for an AfD regional association that is monitored by the Office for the Protection of the Constitution, and, in view of almost 40 percent of non-voters, saw “all democratic parties have a high degree of responsibility”.
Greens co-boss Robert Habeck did not want to get involved in Anne Will’s question as to whether the latest fuel price debate had harmed his Greens, but saw deeper causes: “Certain topics that are widely discussed in society and also have a majority work not in certain regions. “
For example, when it comes to climate protection, which almost all parties have defined as the “next task of the decade”, there are “completely different discourses” in East and West. He made critical reference Statements by the CDU Eastern Commissioner Marco Wanderwitz, who said in a podcast that the people in the East were partially “socialized by dictatorship” and that even after 30 years they had not reached democracy.
This is “a blatant giving up and a fading out of the last 30 years”, according to Habeck, the relevant question is rather: “How do we manage to lead a common discourse?”
The guests
- Volker Bouffier (CDU), Prime Minister of Hesse
- Robert Habeck, co-chairman of the Greens
- Sahra Wagenknecht, member of the Bundestag for the Left
- Tino Chrupalla, co-party chairman of the AfD
- Nadine Lindner, correspondent in the Deutschlandradio capital studio
The first rash on the emotional scale came when the AfD co-chairman Tino Chrupalla wanted to place his narrative that the voters had voted conservatively and bourgeoisie and wanted a ruling coalition made up of the CDU and AfD.
Confronted by Anne Will with the fact that his party was creating a radical mood against alleged “affluent migrants”, that the danger of the coronavirus was played down and warned against vaccinations, he did not want to distance himself from it. As chairman, he stands up for his colleagues. The assessment of his co-party leader Jörg Meuthen that a more moderate course would have brought even greater approval, he dismissed as an “individual opinion of a member of our party”.
When Chrupalla described the AfD as the “only noticeable opposition in the federal government”, he called on the left-wing member of the Bundestag Sahra Wagenknecht, who verve emphasized the neo-Nazi proximity of the right-wing party: “Your top candidate felt comfortable in a Facebook group who thought it was funny to mount Anne Frank, who had been murdered by the Nazis, on a pizza box and to write under it, “fresh from the oven.” I find that so disgusting, I find that so disgusting. If you compete with people like that, you can’t do this here act as if you were the great bourgeois-conservative opposition. “
Wagenknecht described it as a “huge mistake” that “for many, the label ‘left’ no longer stands for striving for more social justice, but rather for self-righteousness, for a certain well-off, academic metropolitan milieu that leads debates, that pass by the reality of life “.
In addition, people should also be “instructed” – keyword gender – what they understand “as an affront”. In this context, Anne Will came back to the controversial Wanderwitz statements – and thus triggered the next heated confrontation.
If Volker Bouffier tried to appease – he did not share Wanderwitz ‘view that two thirds had voted democratically, the younger AfD voters had no experience of dictatorship at all – Nadine Lindner provoked with the thesis that “such things” are also “inherited” . Sahra Wagenknecht countered the dictatorship in which the French were socialized and who voted for Marine Le Pen, expressing understanding for a feeling of being left behind in “regions where everything has collapsed”.
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AfD man Chrupalla railed against Wanderwitz ‘”unspeakable abuse” of East German voters. It is “an absolute humiliation that we still need a representative for the East 31 years after reunification. Supervised thinking for the Ossis, or what is that supposed to represent?” Instead, he suggested the introduction of a “Western Commissioner”: “We can’t be comfortable with 25 percent Greens in the West either.”
Robert Habeck preferred to refer to Sahra Wagenknecht, agreed to her that “a skeptical relationship to democracy is not a purely East German phenomenon”, but contradicted that poverty goes hand in hand with AfD elections. “The reason for the breakup of society lies in the relationship to change,” analyzed the Greens boss. There are regions that have already experienced such severe structural changes that it is enough for them once and for all. It is therefore the task of politics to “moderate change better”.
When Tino Chrupalla interjected, but the people didn’t want these changes, the Green leader briefly lost his composure and even got confused with the people: “That’s what I said, Mr. Wanderwitz, some of the people don’t want any change!” Only to then apologize to the Eastern Commissioner who was not present: “I didn’t want to confuse you with unpleasant politicians.” Habeck said to Chrupalla: “To say I don’t want any change is an absurdly stupid position.”
Conclusion: A heated debate about the question of what makes the East tick – and the recent realization that dealing with unpleasant positions is inevitable to answer.
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