In Thuringia it should finally work. "Only with the FDP in the state parliament, the left government can be replaced," said recently party leader Christian Lindner in an interview with the SPIEGEL. On 27 October, the Liberals finally want to show happy faces again and move after five years absence again in Erfurt Parliament.
The party desperately needs a sense of achievement. In Saxony and Brandenburg failed the FDP at the five-percent hurdle. Thuringia, ruled by a red-red-green coalition, is expected to open a way out of East Germany's FDP in six weeks. And possibly even give the Liberals a place in a future coalition government.
At least that's the plan. Whether he rises is uncertain. Because it really does not work for the Thuringian FDP. The polls see the party at four to five percent. Chief executive and top candidate Thomas L. Kemmerich feels: It's going to be very close.
Already in the most recent sad election night, Kemmerich had vented his anger, warned against a left-liberal course and called for a clearer course on climate and migration. This week, the state chairman sent a letter to FDP leader Lindner. In it, he went to court with the federal party: The people of East Germany wanted an FDP, the "clear edge" show and deliver realpolitik solutions. "Solutions that recognize and acknowledge the realities of people - even beyond urban centers such as Berlin, Hamburg or Cologne," wrote Kemmerich.
Christoph Soeder / dpa
FDP politician Kemmerich (3rd from left), Lindner and party friends after the state elections in Saxony and Brandenburg: "Let's go!"
The 54-year-old from Aachen, who went to the East shortly after the reunification in 1989 and heads a hairdressing chain, drew attention to himself in the spring of 2018 - unsuccessful - on the FDP Federal Party Day together with Party Vice Wolfgang Kubicki for a gradual The end of EU sanctions against Russia fought. The topic reappears in his letter to Lindner: companies in Thuringia, which had interpreted their entire business activities on the trade relations with Russia, were "the victims of the unsuccessful sanctions measures". The FDP should therefore "work for a new diplomatic rapprochement with Russia".
Right liberal course
Liberals have a hard time asserting themselves in Thuringia. There is the CDU under Mike Mohring, who is on a conservative course, there is above all Björn Höcke, right wing in the AfD, whose national association see the pollsters in 21 percent.
Kemmerich is obviously on a right-liberal course, even if he does not like to hear the word itself. He is annoyed by votes from the FDP junior, the July and the former FDP Federal Interior Minister Gerhart tree. In his letter, he does not name them by name, but everyone in the party knows who is meant when he writes that they are resolutely opposing "personalities from the party's past or paranormal organizations" behind the political competitors and the party "one Strengthen Link Course ".
imago images / VIADATA
FDP politician Kemmerich (left) at a business meeting: "For a new diplomatic rapprochement with Russia."
Compared to the Spiegel, Kemmerich becomes clearer: Baum "gave an interview every day", he heard from citizens over and over again that his statements were attributed to the party, even though they were private opinions. "I would recommend Mr Baum to stand once in a party congress and to fight for majorities for his left-liberal positions," said Kemmerich.
Six weeks before the state election, his letter and his remarks are at least unusually open. But does that bring the Thuringian FDP votes in the end?
FDP leader Lindner responded immediately via Twitter. A means that the 40-year-old also uses to end internal debates quickly - he is not afraid as much as a relapse into old disputes of the FDP. Kemmerich, according to Lindner in his Tweet, had the focus on economics, " reasonable climate policy and consistent migration policy" recommended: "Media read this as criticism of the party - I share the basic idea!"
The basic idea - in other words: in the concrete embodiment, there are differences. Kemmerich defends his letter: "As far as Christian Lindner and I are concerned, we spoke on the evening of the most recent state elections that something has to change, that the FDP needs to name things more clearly."
Where has the momentum of 2017 gone?
He expresses expectations to the party leader: "I am also concerned with the letter that Christian Lindner intervenes as party chairman." Lindner himself is often criticized by "our opponents for clear positions, so the party may no longer leave him alone or even apologize," he says.
His statements are aimed primarily at the July, which had demanded a more emphatic approach to the "Fridays for Future" movement in a strategy paper under its - internally controversial - chairman Ria Schröder. Ria Schröder herself had also made it clear to Lindner to adore Horst Seehofer and the CSU in migration politics.
Kemmerich wishes, "that we as FDP back to the momentum of 2017," when the FDP from the extra-parliamentary opposition in the Bundestag came. Attention should also give him motives of the agency "home" from Berlin-Kreuzberg, the election campaigns of the federal FDP in the recent past accompanied. On them Kemmerichs bald face is to be seen, a saying plays ironically with the right-wing radicalism in the East German country: "Finally a bald, which has taken care in history."
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