Lawmakers in German state of Thuringia to vote again to elect premier
Legislators in the German state of Thuringia will vote today to choose a premier after an earlier election resulted in a nationwide political crisis and the resignation of the state premier.
October 2019 elections in Thuringia led to a political confrontation in Germany after Thuringia’s Christian Democratic Union (CDU) branch actively defied the national party’s ban on working with the far-right Alternative for Deutschland (AfD). The episode ultimately led to the resignation of party leader Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, Chancellor Angela Merkel’s chosen successor.
The complex situation in Thuringia mirrors a broader trend in German politics, where centre parties are losing the backing of their rank-and-file members amid a surge in support for the left-wing Greens and the far-right AfD. The AfD made significant gains in state elections in Brandenburg and Saxony last year, an ominous sign for Merkel’s CDU.
A pact between the socialist Left Party, the centre-left Social Democrats, the Greens, and the CDU will result in Left Party candidate Bodo Ramelow’s election as state premier. At the national level, the CDU must now select a new successor to Merkel, a process expected to take up to a year that will see moderate and hard-line conservatives face off amidst the rising popularity of AfD in the country’s east.
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