Former Thuringian Prime Minister Christine Lieberknecht (CDU) views the success of the AfD as a direct response by East Germans to perceived Western German dominance in public debate. Speaking to Stern, the CDU politician stated that the increasing disillusionment and fading trust in established parties resulted in the AfD’s landslide victory being nothing short of a “plebiscite of East German self-emancipation from the dictation of Western leadership.”
From the perspective of the former Thuringian head of government, the AfD holds not only a governing mandate in Saxony-Anhalt but also controls the state parliament administration. Accordingly, Lieberknecht argued that it would be a mistake to deny the AfD the parliamentary conventions guaranteed to it by law. She clarified that party distancing decisions apply only partially to elected representatives, emphasizing that the state constitution and the Basic Law only mandate an “obedience to conscience.” She added, “It is commonly known that pressuring deputies is even a criminal offense.”
In contrast, Bodo Ramelow, the Bundestag Deputy President of The Left, called for a new political approach regarding the AfD. “I never thought much of the ‘firewall’ concept,” he told the magazine. “While it is crucially important to keep the AfD away from shaping power, it is also right to engage with them politically.”
Ramelow, who once succeeded Lieberknecht as the head of government in Thuringia, drew on his party’s experience and that of its predecessor, PDS. He noted that the stronger the CDU previously excluded the PDS, the greater the PDS’s support grew in the East. He recalled that his party had successfully captured the spirit of defiance among the people in the region, stating, “Now the extremists are doing it.”
