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SPD parliamentary group manager Katja Mast in the Bundestag
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Frederic Kern / Geisler-Fotopress / picture alliance
Thuringia's FDP leader Thomas Kemmerich defended decisions in the state parliament with the help of the AfD in an interview with SPIEGEL. He is considered the most controversial politician of his party in the east – criticism of his statements is now coming from the SPD.
"We can't stop our work just because Red-Red-Green is trying to push us into a certain corner. The SPD and the Greens could have voted with us," said the 58-year-old. Now SPD parliamentary group manager Katja Mast countered. "What's going on? Nobody is pushing anyone into a corner here," she told SPIEGEL.
"It's about breaking taboos all the time and then trying to justify them with unctuous words," Mast said. "The AfD is not a normal party, but a danger to our country. Anyone who argues like Kemmerich helps the AfD, and that's exactly what's dangerous." In Thuringia, the AfD under state leader Björn Höcke is classified as right-wing extremist.
»Dark Abyss«
"It is wrong to insult every AfD voter as a Nazi," Kemmerich said in an interview with SPIEGEL. "We have just received the receipt with the high results of the AfD in Bavaria and Hesse."
Meanwhile, Hamburg's Justice Senator Anna Gallina was irritated on X, formerly Twitter. The interview "allows us to look deeply, and into a very dark abyss," Gallina writes, with a view to the upcoming elections in Thuringia in 2024. It is not relevant whether the AfD agrees to an FDP motion. But whether he gets a majority exclusively through the votes of the AfD," Gallina continued.
Kemmerich was surprisingly elected Prime Minister of Thuringia on February 5, 2020. AfD votes had tipped the scales. After public pressure, the FDP politician announced his resignation shortly after his election, which he completed shortly afterwards. Kemmerich had neither succeeded in forming a government nor in appointing ministers for a cabinet.
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