Next Thuringian escalation: Höcke (AfD) files criminal charges against Merkel

After the electoral scandal in Thuringia, Kemmerich (FDP) resigned. CDU country chief Mohring's resignation should follow. And now the AfD wants to sue Merkel.

• 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 .
• Meanwhile, there is growing evidence that the events in the election in Thuringia were no accident .

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 right-wing radical 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.

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