Two days after AfD politician Tobias Rausch was elected state parliament speaker in Magdeburg, the affair has reached national politics. On Thursday evening Der Spiegel reported a top-level meeting on the consequences for the chancellor and the Union and spoke of a government crisis; participants and outcome had not been confirmed by morning. Minister-President Sven Schulze had called in vain for abstention, and the CDU caucus has shrunk from 40 to 15 lawmakers. Lower Saxony’s CDU chief Lechner demands a “convincing plan” from Merz. The Bundestag puts the “consequences of the state election in Saxony-Anhalt” on its agenda on Friday. In Lower Saxony, SPD caucus leader Politze resigned because of a prosecutors’ investigation; in Berlin, exploratory talks between the Left Party, SPD and Greens begin.
The vote in Magdeburg shows whether the CDU’s separation from the right also holds in everyday politics, and tests the chancellor’s authority within his own party.
For you this has mainly political consequences: whether the coalition can still push through the July reform package on pensions and taxes depends on how stable it is after this week. No concrete laws are affected today.
The CDU must call its dissenters to account and state clearly where its line runs. Otherwise it loses trust among its voters and in the coalition.
A secret ballot in a state parliament is no reason for a federal crisis. Anyone who turns it into a question about the chancellor mainly helps the AfD.
The most interesting question is not who deviated in Magdeburg, but whether anyone in Berlin has a plan. Watch today for the Bundestag debate and for whether the top-level meeting produces a joint statement. Until then: a “plan” has been demanded, not presented.
Spiegel · Zeit · Handelsblatt · Tagesschau · FAZ · Bundestag (agenda) (all Oct. 8–9) · vote count according to reports · content of the top-level meeting not checked
After the AfD vote in Magdeburg, the crisis reaches the chancellor: crisis meeting of the Union, Lower Saxony’s CDU chief demands a “convincing plan”
Two days after AfD politician Tobias Rausch was elected state parliament speaker, Der Spiegel speaks of a government crisis. The Bundestag takes up the consequences today; in Berlin, the Left Party, SPD and Greens begin their exploratory talks.
The election of AfD politician Tobias Rausch as state parliament speaker in Saxony-Anhalt reached national politics on Thursday. On Thursday evening Der Spiegel reported on a top-level meeting on the consequences for the chancellor and the Union and spoke of a government crisis. Who took part and what was agreed had not been confirmed by early Friday morning. The reports reviewed contained no public termination of the coalition of the Union and the SPD.
According to reports, Rausch received 48 votes on Tuesday. Minister-President Sven Schulze had called on his caucus to abstain, but only a few of the now 15 CDU lawmakers followed; before the vote the caucus had 40. Der Spiegel asks whether the chancellor’s fate hangs on Schulze. According to Die Zeit and Handelsblatt, Lower Saxony’s CDU chief Lechner demanded a “convincing plan” from Friedrich Merz. According to these reports, he left open what that plan should look like. The question of how far the CDU’s separation from the right extends, the so-called firewall (Brandmauer), thus remains open and is now being asked at the federal level too.
The background explains the nervousness. On Wednesday the coalition committee met for more than four hours and set itself against every form of political extremism, but presented no timetable for the reforms. Merz considers full implementation of the July package by Christmas unfeasible; the SPD rejects, among other things, the abolition of pensions without deductions after 45 years of contributions. In Saxony-Anhalt, CDU lawmakers are internally demanding Schulze’s resignation, according to reports by Süddeutsche Zeitung and MDR, and CDA chairman Dennis Radtke calls for party expulsion proceedings if it turns out that CDU lawmakers voted for Rausch. A secret ballot makes that hard to prove. In the ZDF Politbarometer, a good two thirds of respondents see the AfD as a danger to democracy. A CDU state party conference is planned for early December.
On Friday the Bundestag’s agenda includes an item “Consequences of the state election in Saxony-Anhalt”; the parliament is also debating a migration turnaround and motions on pensions. The SPD, too, is in motion. In Lower Saxony, caucus leader Stefan Politze resigned because prosecutors are investigating; state party chief Lies paid “respect” to the decision, according to Die Zeit. Der Spiegel also analyzes new demands from Boris Pistorius, whose content we have not checked.
In Berlin, the Left Party, SPD and Greens are beginning exploratory talks on a possible government. The Tagesschau calls them a practical test for the red-green-red theory. The Central Council of Jews criticizes the three parties’ agreement on dealing with antisemitism; Die Zeit reports that SPD politician Karl Lauterbach rejects such an alliance. The still-serving governing mayor Kai Wegner (CDU) had criticized that the parties were arguing over how to deal with antisemitism instead of protecting Jewish life. Nothing has been decided. The situation is also being watched beyond the parties: the Bundestag debate on the 2027 economic forecasts on Thursday and the motions on pension policy on Friday show how many projects depend on a coalition able to work.