Saxony-Anhalt | Merz’ extremist soup

After the Saxony-Anhalt election, Friedrich Merz is at a loss, but he still has his old enemy images. Photo: dpa/Kay Nietfeld Friedrich Merz appeared shocked after the state elections in Saxony-Anhalt. You can take away the shock over the AfD triumph and the historic CDU bankruptcy. But apparently the shock wasn't so deep that he forgot his biting reflexes. In any case, he summed up the election result the next day as follows: "If almost 60 percent, with very high voter turnout, vote for political parties that fundamentally question the democratic institutions and rules of the game, then that is an election result with which one cannot move on to the agenda."

60 percent - this is the number you get if you throw the election results of the AfD, BSW and the Left into one pot and stir it once. The extremist soup is ready. However, one would really like to know where, when and how The Left and also the BSW “fundamentally question democratic institutions and the rules of the game”. The Wagenknecht squad is openly flirting with a party that really has to be blamed for this. But The Left? At times it acts more in a state-supporting manner than in a subversive manner; Merz should not have forgotten how the Left faction, of all people, ensured that there could be a quick second round of voting in the Bundestag chancellor election after the CDU candidate did not get enough votes in the first attempt.

Whether that was right or wrong is debatable. But it really wasn't an attack on democracy, on the contrary. However, the Left should not allow itself to be pushed into a sectarian corner by such nonsensical attacks as Merz's. There are people who think that “our democracy” is just an empty phrase used by bourgeois politicians and that real leftists should not be involved in it. But anyone who can count to three politically should know how to differentiate between disputes between fundamentally democratic parties and the fight against enemies of democracy.

Parties don't have to love each other, they should argue hard - but also know the difference between those who act on the basis of the Basic Law and those who don't give a damn about human and fundamental rights. Democracy is not bourgeois folklore, but rather a foundation of our society that can certainly be expanded, but must definitely be defended. When Merz, in the style of a Cold Warrior from the day before yesterday, labels the Left and the BSW alongside the AfD as enemies of democracy, then he is trivializing the far-right party. And he proves that he has not yet fully understood the breach of the dam that occurred in Saxony-Anhalt on election Sunday and the preparatory work his own party did for it.

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