Spectacular Thuringia unveiling: Ramelow unpacks via "toilet deal"

It's getting more and more explosive in Thuringia: Now AfD parliamentary leader Höcke has announced that she wants to display Merkel and Ramelow reveals details of a toilet deal with Mohring.

• FDP politician Thomas Kemmerich let himself be elected Prime Minister of Thuringia with AfD votes and thus triggered a political quake.
• Kemmerich and CDU boss Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer have now resigned .
• However, there is growing evidence that the events in the election in Thuringia were no coincidence .

Update at 13.08 clock: In the Thuringian electoral scandal , details of an explosive back room agreement have apparently come to light again. It has long been speculated why left-wing leader Bodo Ramelow even ran for the prime ministerial election without being able to rely on a majority in the state parliament. Because as managing prime minister, the politician had no time pressure. He could have continued to govern and negotiate for a majority.

But a Facebook comment from Ramelow now seems to reveal the strategy that the left-wing politician hoped to re-elect. The 63-year-old apparently wanted to secure his next term of office with a toilet deal , writes Bild.de. Apparently there was an agreement with the Thuringian CDU chief Mike Mohring , according to which at the crucial point in the election "4 deputies go to the toilet ... so it was discussed." To what extent Ramelow would have used? In the third ballot, a candidate no longer needs an absolute majority to be elected. If four members of the CDU had gone to the bathroom, the votes of the Left, SPD and Greens , 44 in number, would have been enough to elect Ramelow against the votes of all other groups.

In this Facebook comment, Ramelow admits the toilet deal openly.

© Screenshot: Facebook

Ramelow defends this planned - but apparently failed maneuver in his Facebook comment. "I also practiced using the toilet during Althau's reign when the CDU had a majority vote," he continued to chatter out of the box. This is called pairing and this is not unusual. Thuringia's CDU chief Mike Mohring has not yet publicly commented on the incident.

Thuringia: Ramelow wants to dissolve Landtag with budget decision 2021

Update on February 12, 2020 at 9.48 a.m .: While Chancellor Angela Merkel reacted to the planned AfD announcement with harsh criticism of the party, Thuringia's ex-Prime Minister Bodo Ramelow is preparing for his possible re-election. If this happens, he wants to make a transition and then initiate new elections . "If the CDU, FDP and Red-Red-Green agree that the state parliament will dissolve with the 2021 budget decision, that is the best way," Ramelow told the Thuringian newspapers of the Funke media group. This would be unusual in that a budget is usually decided at the end of the year.

However, Ramelow does not consider new elections to be a priority - although, in his own opinion, they would have a personally beneficial effect. "I would probably benefit from this in terms of my personal popularity ratings and the values ​​of my party," said the ex-prime minister. "But that's not how we should approach it. With all the deadlines to be observed, we would have a new government in 150 days at the earliest . We simply cannot afford that . "

Thuringia: CDU, Linke, SPD and Greens discuss the current government crisis on February 17

Representatives of the Left, the SPD, the Greens and the CDU plan to meet on February 17 to discuss the current government crisis. The Thuringian CDU does not want to actively vote for Ramelow. But he could be elected if the CDU abstains from voting.

Update 20:04: The old prime minister could soon be the new one in Thuringia. If it is up to red-red-green, Bodo Ramelow (left) should be re-elected Prime Minister of the Free State after the resignation of Thomas Kemmerich ( FDP ).

To get a majority in the state parliament, Ramelow would need at least individual votes from the CDU or the FDP . A problem that - as reported by bild.de - probably cannot be solved. Because both representatives of the CDU and the FDP are still not given the green light for the election of Ramelow .

Thuringia: CDU and FDP speak out against Ramelow election

CDU general secretary in Thuringia Raymond Walk said that his party would not vote for the former prime minister. Robert-Martin Montag, the parliamentary director of the Thuringian FDP , also said that none of his party colleagues wanted to vote for Ramelow .

We have our principles and clear decisions & ask to respect them. The difficult majority relationships are a task for all of us to deal prudently with this complicated situation. Therefore it is not helpful if now - from whichever side 1/2 https://t.co/ZnG28B29mK

“It is clear to us that we will not vote for Ramelow. There are too many differences. You can't ask us to do that, ”says the FDP man. New elections can hardly be prevented in Thuringia . However, the question of who will lead the country to these remains open.

Thuringia: AfD wants to file a complaint against Merkel - she counters sharply

Update at 6:25 p.m .: Chancellor Angela Merkel ( CDU ) sharply attacked the AfD at a meeting of the Union faction on Tuesday. "The AfD has an agenda," said Merkel to the participants in the meeting. “And, of course, this agenda is also a particular challenge for us, especially with regard to the CDU , because it is very clear that democracy is to be destroyed. (...) That you want to undermine them. "

That would be noticed every week of the session in the Bundestag, the Chancellor continues. It is not known whether Angela Merkel's statements were in response to the AfD's announcement that she would file a lawsuit against the Chancellor. With regard to the election in Thuringia , the Chancellor emphasized again that there is a vote "that we do not do anything together with the AfD ".

After the election scandal in Thuringia: Kretschmer and Lindner call for independent candidates

Update at 5:00 p.m .: After the election crisis in Thuringia , a solution is still being sought. A completely new proposal came from Saxony's Prime Minister Michael Kretschmer ( CDU ) and FDP boss Christian Lindner . Both politicians have spoken out in favor of an independent candidate taking over the office of prime minister in Thuringia and thus preparing the Free State for new elections.

"The only thing that now helps in this difficult situation is a neutral personality that is borne by everyone and that ensures that new elections can take place in this country in an agreed time of maybe twelve months," said Kretschmer in the ARD noon magazine , According to Christian Lindner , Stefan Kaufmann, the President of the Thuringian Constitutional Court, could take on this task.

A similar measure has also been used to overcome the Ibiza crisis in Austria, Lindner continues. Meanwhile, the CDU / CSU parliamentary group's parliamentary director, Michael Grosse-Brömer, continues to appeal to the SPD and the Greens to propose an alternative candidate who can unite a parliamentary majority.

Election crisis in Thuringia: Thomas Kemmerich (FDP) will not represent Thuringia in the Federal Council

Update at 16:16: Thuringia will not take part in the Federal Council meeting on Friday after the election scandal last week. Short-term Prime Minister Thomas Kemmerich would be entitled to participate even after his resignation, but wants to do without it. Kemmerich ( FDP ) would currently be the only person entitled to vote for the Free State in the Federal Council. Due to his absence from the session on Friday, the four votes to which Thuringia is entitled will be absent from the votes in the regional chamber.

However, the effects on the processes of the regional chamber will be limited. For Thuringia , officials from the state representative will be present in the Federal Council, but they do not have the right to vote and rather have observer status.

After the election scandal in Thuringia: Björn Höcke wants to file a criminal complaint against Merkel

Update at 2:43 p.m .: While the indications are increasing that the election scandal in Thuringia was not just a coincidence, but rather a card game, the AfD has already taken care of the next scandal due to the Thuringian political quake. The party wants to report Angela Merkel because of the alleged coercion of the FDP politician Thomas Kemmerich and also submit a legal warning with an injunction .

One of the driving forces behind the AfD lawsuit against Chancellor Angela Merkel is obviously the Thuringian AfD parliamentary group leader and party right wing Björn Höcke . He wrote on Twitter on Tuesday morning: "I am filing criminal charges against Merkel for the Federal Chancellor's coercion of the Prime Minister." Höcke further stated that it was "unacceptable" that the Chancellor had forced an elected Prime Minister of another party to resign.

It is unacceptable that the Federal Chancellor forced an elected Prime Minister of another party to resign. It is therefore important that the display of the resistance to these methods is documented. # Thuringia #Kemmerich #Merkel pic.twitter.com/fuf43ADct4

Election scandal in Thuringia apparently no coincidence: what did Kemmerich and Mohring know?

First report from February 11, 2020, 1:59 p.m .:

Berlin / Erfurt - How unexpectedly did the uproar in the prime minister election in Thuringia really come for the leading CDU and FDP politicians? The leaders of both parties were extremely surprised , sometimes horrified, when FDP politician Thomas Kemmerich was elected in Thuringia with votes from the AfD. Since then heads have rolled: after only one day in office, Kemmerich resigned at the urging of FDP leader Lindner and Thuringian CDU leader Mike Mohring will probably also step down in May . On Monday the next resignation hammer: CDU boss Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer announced her resignation * - and with it automatically the renunciation of the Federal Chancellery .

Election scandal in Thuringia: CDU and FDP drop dramatically in voter polls

At the latest now it is clear: The election debacle in Thuringia has turned politics not only there, but nationwide. In polls by voters, the CDU and FDP are on historic low-level flights *, and who now takes over the Federal Chancellery after Angela Merkel is just as unclear as the favorite for Thomas Kemmerich's successor in the Thuringian state parliament. In the midst of this chaos, one now looks at one of the important pullers in the Thuringian CDU and close confidants of Mohring: Karl-Eckhard Hahn , head of the scientific service of the CDU parliamentary group, described days before the election like an FDP candidate can also be elected Prime Minister with votes from the AfD and CDU .

Three days before the far-reaching election, he published a text in the debate portal The European, which is declared as a purely “personal view”. In his opinion article, Hahn asked the question of how it should be assessed if a government came into office with the votes of AfD MPs. And to a certain extent he gave himself an answer by criticizing the left-wing state chairwoman Susanne Hennig-Wellsow for her attempt to " scandalize the AfD's approval of the candidate for a middle-class bourgeois party".

Read also: The AfD is already planning the next blow against the federal CDU: The AfD party executive wants to bring Chancellor Angela Merkel to court because of the events in Thuringia *.

Prime Minister election in Thuringia may not have been a coincidence - indications of collusion are increasing

This project of the left is " democratically questionable because the citizens of Thuringia are represented not by 68 but by 90 deputies," wrote the CDU politician. And he also emphasized that the 22 deputies of the AfD were just as democratically legitimized by the Thuringian voters as those of the other groups. Hahn also made it clear in his article that he saw no danger in electing a prime minister with AfD votes.

Angela Merkel also described the Union of Values ​​as a "cancerous growth". Find out what is behind this association here. *

Hahn's essay, which appeared so shortly before the election, is another clear sign that Kemmerich's election with AfD votes was no accident . Immediately after the Thuringian scandal, there were suspicions that FDP leader Lindner had also given the green light in advance for a victory for Kemmerich with the support of the AfD . Lindner had these rumors denied via the FDP Twitter account.

Regarding today's reporting by @BIDeutschland (Business Insider), we note: At no time did the FDP party chairman, @c_lindner, internally or publicly approve of any kind of cooperation with the AfD. #Thuringia

The former government parties, the Left, the SPD and the Greens nevertheless suspect a card game, writes the Tagesspiegel. Further developments may show whether this was actually the case.

Incidentally, the events in Thuringia and AKK's resignation on Monday were also an issue for “Hart but fair”. A Green politician took a verbal blow on TV against Lindner, who had it all *. In the meantime, head Wulf Schmiese billed German Chancellor Angela Merkel in the ZDF “today journal” *.

* Merkur.de is part of the nationwide Ippen Digital editors network

cia, dpa

List of rubric lists: © picture alliance / dpa / Martin Schutt