Kretschmer: Non-election of AfD committee candidates wrong

Saxony's Minister President Michael Kretschmer has criticized the way the AfD is handled in the election of committee chairs in the Bundestag. "I think that's wrong," the CDU vice-chairman told "Zeit Online" about the attitude of the other parliamentary groups in the Bundestag not to elect AfD candidates. "It's not about whether we grant the AfD the same rights as the other parliamentary groups. No, it does have these rights. And we should not strengthen the AfD in a martyr role."

Before the secret ballot, the leadership of the CDU/CSU parliamentary group had also expressly spoken out against voting for the AfD candidates and justified this with the classification of the AfD by the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (Verfassungsschutz) as definitely right-wing extremist - which has since been put on hold due to a legal dispute. In the six Bundestag committees in which the AfD, as the second largest parliamentary group, has the right to nominate candidates, all of its candidates failed. It is still unclear how to proceed with the election of deputies. The CDU/CSU leadership has also spoken out against the election of AfD candidates in this case.

Doubts about the effectiveness of previous democracy projects

Kretschmer also called the increase in right-wing extremist violence a "worrying development". He called for new approaches to preventative work: many democracy projects that have emerged in recent years are valuable, but often fail to gain access to young people with extremist or anti-authority attitudes.

"We must not leave it to left-wing initiatives alone to counter right-wing extremist tendencies," he said. "We need credible players who have access to these milieus. An educational approach that is ideologically charged from the outset often creates more distance than closeness. We need providers who enjoy trust - and that doesn't work with gender language and rainbow flags."