It was not so long ago, just a few months, when the CDU in Saxony seemed to tilt to the right. In May in the European elections, the AfD lay ahead of the Christian Democrats in the state, even in the municipalities, the party suffered a bitter defeat. In the party rumbled: What should happen only if you land in the parliamentary election behind the AfD?
The desire had long arisen in parts of the Saxon Union to hold the AFD accountable; with tolerating the AfD to form a minority government. Party leader Michael Kretschmer was under pressure. It was clear in the party that he was not available for that, they had to overthrow him.
State election Saxony 2019
Final result
List voices Result
Shares in percent
CDU
32.1
-7.3
The left
10.4
-8.5
SPD
7.7
-4.7
AFD
27.5
+17.7
green
8.6
+2.9
FDP
4.5
+0.7
Free voters
3.4
+1.8
allocation of seats
Total: 119
Majority: 60 seats
14
10
12
45
38
The left (14)
SPD (10)
Green (12)
CDU (45)
AfD (38)
Source: Provincial Returning Officer
Results in detail
Months later, on Wednesday evening in Radebeul, Saxony, there is hardly anything left of this mood. By a large majority, the 214 delegates did not vote for an opening to the AfD, but instead voted to govern with the SPD and Greens in the future. On December 20, Kretschmer will again be elected prime minister, then with the votes of Saxony's first Kenya coalition. The SPD and the Greens are also questioning their members - and even there approval is very likely.
The party is behind Kretschmer
It is not only in the CDU, but also in the coalition partner, that the merit of Kretschmer can be said to have come this far. If some could well imagine, especially in the right-wing regional association of the Saxon Union, that cooperation with the AfD would come about, Saxony is clearly the farthest away from it. In Saxony-Anhalt and Thuringia wiggle the CDU leaders, the advocates of AFD cooperation is louder, in Saxony, they are barely heard. Kretschmer managed to shine with his catching up at the election and his travels to the citizens also in the party. Result: The party is behind him.
Kretschmer spoke to the party in Radebeul for almost 40 minutes. With the question of the top notes in the schools, with the education money, with the reduction of bureaucracy, one has prevailed. And all without humiliating the coalition partner. In fact, the three parties entrenched themselves for weeks in Dresden and fought hard - to the outside penetrated little of it. At the end there is a 133-page coalition agreement that should satisfy all three parties.
Amazingly little criticism was heard now in Radebeul. Some complained of a "left framing". "Many things are anchored in the coalition agreement that has nothing to do with Christian Democratic politics," says one. One woman complained that the state should now support initiatives that want to ban conversion therapies. These are alleged therapies designed to make lesbians and gays heterosexuals. When Kretschmer explains that homosexuality is not a disease and therefore can not be treated, he receives a lot of applause.
He also acknowledged that you could not prevail in everything. So the party must renounce in future the justice and the Ministry of Agriculture, two typical CDU posts in Saxony. But even then Kretschmer received applause, they did not want to give the impression that it was only about offices.
So much praise that Kretschmer is "embarrassed"
That's how the evening went. Critics entered the stage, Kretschmer answered and received approval. In between, the members thanked their party leader, who praise him diligently for his commitment. So much so that Kretschmer says he is "embarrassed". Rather, you have success together.
Only in a few months will it become clear whether Kretschmer can keep the mood at this high level.
In Saxony-Anhalt, the Prime Minister Reiner Haseloff, who had experienced in Kenya coalitions, blasphemated at his small CDU party conference last weekend. In Magdeburg govern the three parties since 2016 and come again and again violently together. Recently, the coalition almost burst because they could not even agree on a secretary of state. The CDU in Saxony apparently had more of the SPD and Greens than it was three years ago, said Haseloff now. There, too, they started in unity - in the coalition and in the CDU. It did not last too long.