Hans-Georg Maassen
Photo:
DPA / Michael Reichel
Björn Höcke has certified that the CDU Bundestag candidate Hans-Georg Maaßen is closely related to AfD positions.
The election campaign that Maassen is currently leading as a direct candidate in southern Thuringia has "not much to do with the CDU program," teased the AfD right wing in Erfurt.
"There are many interfaces to the AfD," claimed Höcke.
However, this is not due to the CDU program, but solely to the person of Maaßen.
Because this is a "thorn in the flesh of the CDU" and acts like a foreign body in his party.
The former President of the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution is applying in constituency 196 in the south of the Free State for a direct mandate for the Christian Democrats in the federal election on September 26th.
His candidacy is highly controversial in the CDU.
(Read more about his campaign here.)
Höcke, party and parliamentary group leader of the Thuringian AfD, did not want to commit himself in the debate about a possible election recommendation of the AfD for the candidate Maaßen.
The AfD district association decided to set up its own applicant with Jürgen Treutler.
He would not interfere or plead for a waiver of Treutler, said Höcke.
In the hotly contested constituency in southern Thuringia, the SPD candidate, the former Olympic biathlon champion Frank Ullrich, is considered a promising counterpart to Maaßen (read more here).
The Thuringian CDU parliamentary group chairman Mario Voigt meanwhile reiterated the strict demarcation of his party from the AfD. He does not agree with Hans-Georg Maaßen in every position, but a broad spectrum of personalities and positions belong to a people's party like the CDU, said Voigt. At election events, Maaßen always campaigns for votes for the CDU and its candidate for Chancellor Armin Laschet.