Michael Kretschmer in the state election campaign Saxony: The late bloomer

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The boy with the braces wants to confront the prime minister now. It is a Thursday evening in August, the podium discussion in the fully occupied Görlitzer Wichernhaus is just over, as the 16-year-old, who calls himself AfD supporters, comes to Michael Kretschmer. How could it be, asks the teenager at the edge of the stage briskly that he excludes a coalition with the AfD, but not one with the Greens.

Kretschmer answers cautiously, but also definitely: As a traitor he is berated by the AfD, he says. "Traitors are the people who were hanged in Berlin-Plötzensee," he says. He also does not want to be called "Germany haters". Kretschmer explains to the young man that he does not want to govern with the Greens. But if too many people choose AfD, it could happen.

Kretschmer talks to the boy for several minutes, trying to convince him, even though he is not even old enough to take part in the election. Where the bus shelter is, one might still agree with the AfD, says Kretschmer. For the big questions, however, one stands very far apart.

CDU threatens historically bad result

Kretschmer, 44, has been head of government of the Free State of Saxony for less than two years and chairman of the local CDU regional association. If the country's citizens elect a new state legislature on Sunday, the Christian Democrats will have to reckon with the worst outcome since reunification.

Five years ago, the CDU brought just under 40 percent, now it is in the polls at about 30 - and that only thanks to a slight demographic uptrend in recent weeks. It is still not excluded that the right-wing populist AfD will end up in front of the Saxon Union, as in the European elections and the general election.

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For Kretschmer, Sunday is all about political supremacy in the Free State, the State Chancellery and his own political survival. In the brief meeting with the 16-year-old on the sidelines of the election campaign in Görlitz, all the problems that haunt the prime minister in this election come together.

Problem 1: The Greens

Kretschmer has just called the Greens a "prohibition party" again in an interview with SPIEGEL - but without excluding cooperation with them after the election. In fact, the polls currently look as if a Kenya coalition - an alliance of the CDU, the Greens and the SPD - is the only way to keep the AfD away from government work, as Kretschmer wishes.

Green and CDU, however, separate worlds in Saxony, one is much further apart than in Berlin. The Greens in the Free State are a little further to the left, the Saxon Union is much more conservative than the federal CDU. On both sides, one dreads finding a common denominator on the issues of energy, education and internal security.

Possible coalition talks are likely to be extremely tough, the grumbling at the respective party base would be clearly audible. The Greens also want to ask their members about a possible government alliance, as well as the SPD. This is not planned at the CDU. But since Kretschmer pleads for a so-called popular objection to the legislation, one will also ask at the CDU base, why just then they can not decide with whom the party governs in the future.

Should the majority be short for Kenya, there is also a risk that the election of the prime minister will be tight. The members of the Union in Saxony have a certain self-confidence, understood themselves as a directly elected constituency winner in the history always a little as an internal opposition to the CDU government. It all depends on whether Kretschmer, as chairman, will be able to assemble his party behind him - and that the number of dissenters can be kept small.

Problem 2: The AfD

Kretschmer has made mistakes in dealing with the rights in recent years. In the summer of 2018 he was persuaded to initiate a discussion about whether "hunts" took place during the riots in Chemnitz. "There was no mob, there was no hunt and there were no pogroms in this city," he said, giving the public the impression that he wanted to put racist abuse into perspective.

When in Dresden police on the verge of a Pegida demo temporarily detained reporters after they had been mobbed by a demonstrating employee of the State Criminal Office, the head of government prematurely hit the side of the officials. The police later apologized to the reporters.

On the other hand, Kretschmer always finds clear words against right-wing extremism. Hardly any election campaign date passes without calling right-wing extremism one of the biggest problems of the Free State. He formulates this as clearly as no CDU head of state has done in Saxony.

While many a party colleague in the election campaign Hans-Georg Maaßen offered a stage, Kretschmer went in the SPIEGEL interview at a distance from the former constitutional protection president. For his part, the head of the CDU is always looking for a conversation with AFD supporters, he talks feverishly on countless events, travels the country every day. He gives the carer and is also a driven.

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Most recently, the prime minister was accused that he did not participate in the indivisible demonstration in Dresden to put a sign against the right. But what should he do, if those AfD voters are berrascherm, he tried with all his might to win again for the CDU? At least the CDU logic. Had it come to riots Left Radical, the AfD would have personally blamed the Prime Minister.

Kretschmer rehearses the political tightrope act: clear edge against right-wing radicals, at the same time he tries to regain AfD voters for the CDU. It is still uncertain whether his strategy will work.

Problem 3: Görlitz

Kretschmer could have made it easy by choosing a constituency somewhere in the west of Saxony, which he certainly wins. But Kretschmer enters Görlitz as a direct candidate, a stronghold of the AfD. There, where he grew up, where in 2017, the AfD man Tino Chrupalla after 15 years pushed from the Bundestag, there Kretschmer wants to personally beat the right wing party.

And so Kretschmer fought to the very end that his home region, the Lusatian, is funded with billions to the structural change after the coal exit most. As a success, he can also record that the Siemens plant in Görlitz but not closed.

Kretschmer was born in Görlitz, where he began his political career in 1994 as a city councilor. The forecasts for his constituency last looked like he could win him. Should Election Day AFD politician Sebastian Wippel receive most of the first votes, Kretschmer would face the end of his political career.