Voice # 110 - He or Me! How CDU and AfD fight for direct mandates in Saxony
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In the 2014 state election, the CDU won 59 of the 60 direct mandates in Saxony. This year she could lose half of it - especially to the AfD. For the new podcast episode, we drove to Radebeul near Dresden to observe such a direct mandate duel on site.
We met a CDU politician who has always won his constituency since the fall of communism, but has to tremble this year. And we stood at the information booth of his AfD counter-candidate and heard of people who no longer trust the established parties.
Our colleague Timo Lehmann, SPIEGEL editor in Leipzig, finally explained to us how the CDU was able to get this far in its home state of Saxony and why the parties fight more against a sense of insecurity than against reality.
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The complete transcript
[00:00:02] Matthias Kirsch Welcome to Stimmenfang, the political podcast of SPIEGEL ONLINE. I am Matthias Kirsch.
[00:00:11] Einspieler In the German state of Saxony, the CDU has clearly won the state elections. Indeed...
[00:00:15] Matthias Kirsch Something similar has always been the case since reunification, when Saxony was a state election. Because Saxony was CDU's home country, always, even in 2014: in 59 of the 60 constituencies won the CDU candidates at that time the direct mandate. But if elected in Saxony next Sunday, then the CDU could well lose half of these direct mandates, and especially to the AfD. That's why I went to Saxony for this episode of votes and have looked at one of these duels between AfD and CDU up close.
[00:00:49] Matthias Rößler (CDU) Either the AfD candidate manages or me.
[00:00:54] Matthias Kirsch This is Matthias Roessler. For him, as for many of his CDU colleagues in Saxony, the state elections in recent decades were self-proclaimed. Roessler sits since the first state election after the turn in the Saxon parliament. In the meantime, he has been president of the state parliament for ten years, the senior official throughout Germany. For six electoral periods, virtually nobody ever got in his way. But this year, he says such sentences:
[00:01:18] Matthias Rößler (CDU) And I've had more than 50 percent of my constituency here for many years. Now maybe I have half, the other half - excuse me for saying so clearly - is with him at the moment. My whole fight is that of course I'm lying in front of him.
[00:01:37] Matthias Kirsch Before him - Matthias Rößler means his opponent from the AfD. He is not alone with this situation. Also dozens of other CDU candidates in Saxony compete with AfDlern for the direct mandates. So if - as Matthias Roessler says - the AfD of the CDU has taken away half of the voters in Saxony - why is that? Is it because the two parties are not too different?
[00:02:02] René Hein (AfD) Of course, the content of the CDU is relatively close to us, but of course we are your worst competitor, because we have the same target group, the same electoral target group. It's very clear, logical.
[00:02:11] Matthias Kirsch It's very clear. The man we have heard here, the man who is so sure that AfD and CDU vie for the same conservative electorate in Saxony - that's René Hein. He is also the man Matthias Rößler says: Either he does it or me.
[00:02:28] Announcement rapid-transit railway Next station: Radebeul Kötzschenbroda - experience winery - castle Wackerbarth. Exit to the left.
[00:02:37] Matthias Kirsch René Hein and Matthias Rößler both want to win the direct mandate in the Saxon constituency 40. This includes the city of Radebeul. A total of almost 50,000 voters are in the constituency, with the S-Bahn 20 minutes from Dresden.
[00:02:52] Matthias Kirsch Right now I'm walking through the streets and there are also election posters hanging from the AfD candidate, Mr Hein, whom I'm about to meet.
[00:03:06] René Hein (AfD) Mr. Kirsch, I suppose?
[00:03:07] Matthias Kirsch Right.
[00:03:07] René Hein (AfD) Hello.
[00:03:10] Matthias Kirsch René Hein is full in campaign mode. He is currently talking to a young man who wants to know about the AfD, what she can offer him as a start-up founder. Hein's mobile information booth, an AfD blue van, stands in the middle of a busy intersection. But not only the AfD is here on the road. Matthias Rößler is also campaigning and wants to win the citizens for the CDU.
[00:03:34] Matthias Kirsch How often do you really share your place here - even if you have a stall at the same time?
[00:03:39] Matthias Rößler (CDU) That is very rare. That's just here. That's a nerve center here. Here the conflict in my Constituency 40 rages between the AfD and the CDU around the constituency.
[00:03:51] Matthias Kirsch CDU or AfD? - Before this decision, many conservative voters will stand on Sunday in the state election. How close the two parties really are in terms of content is shown, for example, by a look at the campaign ad and statements by candidates from the CDU and AfD:
[00:04:09] Einspieler My important political issues are first the security in Saxony ... I am thinking of the restoration of internal security, because I think specifically of us women ... The order and security in our Free State ... Once the security ... Internal security ... Internal security ... Social security ... Security ... And internal security.
[00:04:28] Matthias Kirsch No matter if you belong to AfD or CDU now - there are no very big content differences for many candidates in Saxony. And when it comes to safety, this also applies to Matthias Rößler and René Hein.
[00:04:42] Matthias Kirsch Do you think there are certain topics that will influence the election campaign this year in particular?
[00:04:47] Matthias Rößler (CDU) The crucial topic is internal security, just as you wrote it down at SPIEGEL ONLINE. Then it goes on, and I did not think so, economic policy too. That's the order that I perceive.
[00:05:00] Matthias Kirsch Matthias Rößler says that. And his opponent René Hein from the AfD?
[00:05:05] René Hein (AfD) Internal security is honed, from my point of view. Even with many questions, for example, we have the Police Law ...
[00:05:10] Matthias Kirsch The same game could be done with a lot of other topics: the expansion of rural areas for example, the de-bureaucratisation or the strengthening of handicraft businesses. In all these points AfD and CDU want to achieve very similar things. At the information stand of René Hein, it is now noon, the sun is pressing and Hein hides under a parasol. A lady comes over, she wants to join the AfD.
[00:05:40] AfD-follower Where do I have to turn?
[00:05:47] René Hein (AfD) To me or to the board. I would say ... I have flyers with the address. But I'll just give you my phone number.
[00:05:58] Matthias Kirsch Here in Radebeul the AfD attracts many people - even those who do not like the party.
[00:06:05] Matthias Kirsch One has here more or less also the attractiveness.
[00:06:13] AfD critic Hello, hello? If you make such suggestions, then you must also bring concrete examples.
[00:06:16] Matthias Kirsch A woman accused the AfD of twisting reality and then moving on. She does not want to argue with the AfDers.
[00:06:26] Matthias Kirsch Does something like that happen to you on the information desks, that people clearly speak out against you?
[00:06:34] René Hein (AfD) Well, of course you have to differentiate. That's more of a mixed urban-rural - small town, if you will. Here, in the area one is relatively rarely confronted with it. But of course there is, of course. But of course it is also logical from my point of view, because we polarize yes in a certain way.
[00:06:53] Matthias Kirsch How do you polarize?
[00:06:53] René Hein (AfD) Well, we have a clear case where the other parties have more or less a completely different opinion. Migration criticism ...
[00:07:04] Matthias Kirsch It does not matter how many similarities are in the election program or how similar the candidates of the CDU and AfD set their priorities: in the end, the people in Radebeul seem to choose the AfD for one reason above all - because of their rejection of German refugee policy since 2015. Many AFD sympathizers at the booth of René Hein did not want to speak in my microphone. For those who did, the answers were almost always the same:
[00:07:32] Matthias Kirsch Are there concrete points where you say that the AfD convinces me?
[00:07:36] AfD-supporter The foreigners policy. I experience that practically on the doorstep itself a bit. Well, one dares not even say, one is German. So!
[00:07:44] Matthias Kirsch Also with this lady, who picked up flyers at the AfD booth:
[00:07:51] AfD- faness There are reasons, I think, in the current government and we have for 30 years, more than enough to vote AfD.
[00:07:57] Matthias Kirsch Do you have an example?
[00:08:01] AfD-follower An example you want to hear? Since I start with the climate policy, I start with the refugee policy, since I started in the broken economy in Germany.
[00:08:07] Matthias Kirsch In addition to the refugee policy, AfD supporters in Radebeul have one more thing in common:
[00:08:14] AfD supporter I used to be a CDU voter until four years ago. And I'll never choose this party again, and I'll never choose any of the old parties again.
[00:08:20] Matthias Kirsch "I've always been a CDU voter." I hear that phrase often. Also from these two AfD supporters:
[00:08:30] AfD followers So we used to be so CDU-like, but that's definitely long gone.
[00:08:32] AfD- fanatic I was a permanent CDU voter - also very convinced at first by Mrs. Merkel, because she showed bite. So, really, I admired that against the self-lover ...
[00:08:45] Matthias Kirsch And not only among the voters is that. The AfD candidate René Hein also says:
[00:08:50] René Hein (AfD) I have to say quite frankly that I've actually chosen more or less CDU. Especially in the 90s under Biedenkopf, that was for us, that was a cool time.
[00:08:59] Matthias Kirsch Of course, a handful of people interviewed on the street are just a small sample. And of course, it happens that a conservative party of another conservative party vindicates voters. Maybe it's simply Radebeul, where the CDU was on average even stronger in the past than in other places in Saxony. But still: Why do so many people have turned their backs on the CDU? Another constituency appointment of Matthias Roessler, the CDU candidate. He visits a hospital in recent years, such appointments have become rarer, says Rösler himself - no wonder, in Saxony, a CDUler was formerly almost without election campaign win a direct mandate. I ask Matthias Roessler what reasons he sees for people leaving the CDU.
[00:09:48] Matthias Rößler (CDU) We also lived on substance, we made mistakes there, that is quite, quite undisputed. That's all there is to it. But the key moment for our situation is the loss of confidence in empowerment in the fall of 2015, when people felt they were out of control for weeks, months or even months. Everything is out of hand here! And that was a huge blow for us, not only in Saxony.
[00:10:16] Matthias Kirsch This year's state election is the first since that fall of 2015. In the other elections, which were in the meantime - ie the federal election two years ago and the European elections this year - the AfD has just this picture sapped. It's still like that now.
[00:10:32] Matthias Kirsch What do these people tell you?
[00:10:34] Matthias Rößler (CDU) There is one thing in common: refugee policy. Almost 90 percent, I would think. There are a few other things, but it always has something to do with it. They are disappointed and many of them are ... or they have already migrated to the non-voters and now they are all on the mat again. God knows I'm not worried about voter turnout.
[00:10:57] Matthias Kirsch Matthias Roessler is already being told in conversation that it annoys him that this federal policy issue is so damaging to him in Saxony. Because it costs him and the CDU just a lot of votes. For Rößler the situation is pretty clear: yes, CDU and AfD have some similarities. And yes, they also vie for the same voters. But Rösler also says:
[00:11:19] Matthias Rößler (CDU) We are the pros! And that has to become clear again. And you can only prove that by acting. We can no longer - and here the federal level does not help us at all - in this apathy, we are actually here in front of us. We have to tackle and solve the problems. And the central problem in the country is: loss of confidence in politics. We have to correct that ...
[00:11:42] Matthias Kirsch Matthias Rößler is convinced that the CDU knows what it is doing - and that it has the people who know how things work - quite unlike the AfD. But his problem is that it does not bring back voters who have long been gone. In order to do that, he has to go on thin ice - namely in the direction of the AfD. As in early August, when he had invited the former secret service chief Hans-Georg Maaßen for a campaign meeting to Radebeul.
[00:12:14] Matthias Kirsch Hans-Georg Maaßen is a CDU member. He represents as a member of the Values Union, the conservative corner. Because of some of his statements but some assume a proximity to the AfD. He was retired early last summer after refusing to report on right-wing extremist hunts in Chemnitz. He also serves a certain audience in Radebeul.
[00:12:37] Hans-Georg Maaßen (CDU) Security in a country does not necessarily have to be guaranteed, otherwise we would have the status of a totalitarian state. But it always has to be dealt with the situation. And the situation in Germany has changed in recent years.
[00:12:54] Matthias Kirsch Because of such attitudes, the CDU man Maaßen is well received by the AfD and their voters. That, too, is one reason why the Saxon Prime Minister Michael Kretschmer did not like the fact that Matthias Rößler invited Maaßen to the election campaign. In an interview with my colleagues from SPIEGEL Kretschmer even said that he had not invited Maaßen, because he would harm Saxony. The not always clear positioning on the AfD is also noticeable at the CDU party base. At another campaign event by Matthias Rößler, two CDU supporters, for example, said the following:
[00:13:30] CDU followers We are in a difficult phase now in Saxony, especially with the AfD, which is repositioning itself. Of course, I want it to be conservative, but I'm also unsure myself. Because you do not really know where the journey is going.
[00:13:46] CDU followers This is just the big problem that the CDU is currently on a rolling course and on the one hand trying to make AFD voters again, so that a profile sharpening is very low.
[00:13:59] Matthias Kirsch It is a difficult task for Matthias Rößler - on the one hand he does not want to get involved with the AfD. On the other hand, he also wants to get voters back from the AfD - or at least not lose more voters. When you realize how close he is, when that happens.
[00:14:16] Matthias Rößler (CDU) Sometimes I also experience CDU members - I've been district chairman for 20 years - and I'm completely surprised. They get up in the podium discussion and then suddenly - and I thought, because you know - then he introduces himself there as an AfD member. This is sometimes surprising - especially if they have experienced people for 15 years or 20 years in a very different party.
[00:14:40] In Radebeul Matthias Rößler might end up with how many people actually switch sides between AfD and CDU - and thus decide the duel for him or his opponent René Heim. Because it could look the same in the state election in many other constituencies as in Radebeul, I finally met with my colleague Timo Lehmann. Timo Lehmann is a SPIEGEL editor in Leipzig and is currently working on the elections in Saxony virtually every day.
[00:15:12] Matthias Kirsch Hello Timo.
[00:15:13] Timo Lehmann Hello.
[00:15:14] Matthias Kirsch Tell me, what happened to the CDU in Saxony? The are now in the polls only just ahead of the AfD.
[00:15:21] Timo Lehmann I would say that, of course, is the question the CDU is facing right now. Of course, here at least the Saxon Union always asserted that it is more about Berlin - and not about them themselves. There are quite a few voices here who say: The course of Angela Merkel in recent years has just more and more voters on the right side away from the CDU. And these are exactly the ones who today also choose AfD for the most part.
[00:15:49] Matthias Kirsch If you are a party in the same electorate - viz. A conservative electorate - what makes the difference between these two parties?
[00:15:59] Timo Lehmann Well, I think that there are very extreme differences in the staff, on the one hand. Also in the AfD in Saxony, there are people who are assigned to the right-wing milieu. There are people who deny climate change, who do not want the coal exit, who say that was a huge mistake, what happened in 2015 with the refugees who fiercely campaigned to deport most people who use terms like "mass immigration". There are big differences again, which in large parts - as conservative as the Saxon Union is - where even borders are clear.
[00:16:38] Matthias Kirsch - Is that because you mentioned the refugee policy - that's the argument, what the people who turn their backs on the CDU attach here?
[00:16:46] Timo Lehmann Partly already. I was at an event where Rainer Wendt appeared, the president of the German police union. And there were many CDU people, members who said: I voted for the CDU and then I got the marriage opening at the end, then I got the nuclear phase-out, now the coal compromise, the coal exit, then the refugee policy. These are too many points from their perspective that would not correspond to the core of the CDU.
[00:17:19] Matthias Kirsch If we look at the refugee policy now. Only this week, the Saxon newspaper has titled that the number of asylum seekers falls in Saxony. How big is the influence of this refugee policy here in Saxony?
[00:17:33] Timo Lehmann Actually very low. Although it is always talked about security, actually it is very safe in Saxony as the statistics say. The crime continues. Even with economic things: unemployment is falling. So, actually, you ask yourself, if it's so much safer here, why are you choosing so many more people afd here than in those parts where it's supposedly that bad. For the CDU, or for everyone - that's what Kretschmer always says himself - the country is being talked down, badly talked about by the AfD. That's what other parties would probably say. And it's more about tackling a sentiment than objective problems - especially the refugee issue. But I would also say that it partly addresses the economic issue, which is raised again and again. Again and again the talk of regions being detached and the like.
[00:18:23] Matthias Kirsch Alright. Thank you Timo.
[00:18:24] Timo Lehmann Thank you.
[00:18:27] Matthias Kirsch That was votes, the policy podcast of SPIEGEL ONLINE. If you liked this episode, you might want to listen to another SPIEGEL podcast. For the current episode of SPIEGEL live, my colleagues Susanne Baier and Janko Tietz have had an exciting conversation with Christiane Paul. The actress tells of her youth in the GDR and why she supports reunification, but feels for her as if the East had been taken over. Like all our podcasts, they can subscribe to SPIEGEL live on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and all other podcatchers. There you will hear the next episode of Stimmenfang as usual next Thursday. If you want to send us feedback please write us an email to stimmfang@spiegel.de or use our voice mailbox on 040 380 80 400. You can also send us a WhatsApp message to the same number, ie 040 380 80 400 , This episode was produced by Yasemin Yüksel and me, Matthias Kirsch. Thanks for supporting Johannes Kückens, Wiebke Rasmussen, Thorsten Rejzek, Matthias Streitz and Philipp Wittrock. The voice-casting music comes from Davide Russo.
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