Until the last minute, the CDU filed at the sentences. Each formulation should be as safe as it is spongy: that it did not look like it was being taken back, nor that the CDU Thuringia was not clear in its statement.
The CDU state board met well one and a half hours on Monday evening in the Erfurt country office, when shortly after half past eight the press release went out. She wears the headline wears: "No Coalition with Left or AfD".
It was the end of a good 24-hour storm that swept through the Christian Democratic Party. The party leader and top candidate Mike Mohring had left the world on election night in the dark as to whether the election promise remains: no coalition, no toleration, no cooperation with the left.
The discussion was fueled by an interview in the ARD "Morgenmagazin" on Monday. Asked whether the CDU would go into government with the left, he said: "We are ready for such a responsibility, we must first explore what that means for Thuringia." Stable conditions are more important to the country than that only for party political interests. "
State election Thuringia 2019
Preliminary final result
Second vote result
Shares in percent
CDU
21.8
-11.7
The left
31
+2.8
SPD
8.2
-4.2
AFD
23.4
+12.8
green
5.2
-0.5
FDP
5
+2.5
other
5.4
-1.7
allocation of seats
Total: 90
Majority: 46 seats
29
8th
5
5
21
22
The Left (29)
SPD (8)
Green (5)
FDP (5)
CDU (21)
AfD (22)
Source: Provincial Returning Officer
Results in detail
And also for his party colleagues from the federal party he had an announcement: "I do not need Berlin to know what is important for Thuringia." He had seen that "Berlin was not useful in the weeks leading up to the election". Even in the press conference in the CDU party headquarters, he left the journalists in the dark, what he actually wanted to say exactly. Mohring on the government bench with a left prime minister? It would have meant an entry in the history books for him.
But the reactions to the test balloon, the Mohring fly, came promptly. In Berlin, the CDU made clear what the decision is: no cooperation. Even in their own national association, the excitement was great. "A coalition with the left would mean the death knell for the Thuringian CDU," said the state parliamentarian Christian Herrgott. Several CDU deputies declared that they would not vote for a left-wing prime minister. "A coalition with the left would rip the CDU," said the deputy Jörg Kellner.
It quickly became apparent that the criticism was tied not only to the proposal itself but also to the person Mohring. Nonchalant Mohring then declared in the state executive on Monday evening, they had just misunderstood him - a press release was already formulated, were processed on the details. The balloon had burst.
But whether his critics are reassured with that is another question. In parts of the group is disappointed in the face of defeat and was surprised that Mohring tried to deport the defeat to Berlin - without even formulating a touch of self-criticism.
That's what his critics say
- Already in 2014 he had disturbed the election campaign of the former CDU Prime Minister Christine Lieberknecht and the SPD as a coalition partner. Mohring's opponents accuse him of having contributed to the loss of the government majority at that time.
- The election campaign had the CDU pointed to a personnel decision between Mohring and Ramelow. From today's perspective probably a mistake, some say in the CDU. Mohring's popularity was not enough for Ramelow.
- At an event of the "taz" Mohring got carried away with a leather jacket to the statement that the AFD country chief Björn Höcke was a "Nazi". Regardless of whether the label is correct, the leading CDU candidate may have bounced off AfD fans rather than regain them.
- Wrong theme setting. A repayment of the road construction contributions had worked rather as a priceless air number, as a serious campaign promise.
- Mohring's criticism of the federal CDU has ultimately harmed the Thuringian CDU itself, as some see it. On election Sunday more convinced the candidates in the constituencies whose first vote result turned out better than the second vote result for the CDU.
And what will become of Mohring?
In the presidium and in the national executive committee one with criticism at Mohring one held back - for the time being, it was said. In recognition, the party praised Mohring's commitment to a cancerous disease as a great human achievement. After all, in Brandenburg and Saxony no serious counter-candidates to the incumbent Prime Minister were in sight. After all, Mohring managed to be perceived as such.
Mohring may also have done something tactically on Monday. His critics moved out of cover.
He now knows where he finds her. Whether you will shake the personnel again? Former Prime Minister Bernhard Vogel, certainly not a Mohring critic, put it this way on Monday afternoon: "At the given time, it must be precisely analyzed where mistakes may have been, including ones of one's own."
