“But I’m district administrator Henning, I’m not the CDU”: The own party in the criticism
Eichsfeld District Administrator Werner Henning (CDU), who has been repeatedly elected since 1994, did not spare criticism of the CDU. Not only did he confirm that the CDU was moving further and further away from the base. The party is trying to control elected CDU district administrators more and more: “But I’m district administrator Henning, I’m not the CDU.”
But Henning became even more critical. “If parties have no answer, parties can only lose. And if the party is no longer good, there is no longer a need for parties.” Henning criticized that the party should not stand alone. “We have to be convinced of our ideas. Just believing in ourselves is not enough. And as it is at the moment, it’s not enough,” said the Eichsfeld district administrator. Unfortunately, he remained vague at this point.
Mohring criticized the fact that the CDU would no longer collect the votes from left-liberal to conservative. “People left and right of center must be accepted.” He didn’t elaborate on what that means exactly. However, for Mohring, the once large people’s parties CDU and SPD have lost their formative power. In addition, the citizens would be more critical: “People want fewer interventions in their lives.” His remedy: Parties must “say what they want to do differently. And show solutions for it.”
After all, there is a loss of credibility for Mohring when politicians don’t keep their promises, “when word and deed fall apart,” as he put it. Mohring referred to federal politics: Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer became Minister of Defense in 2019, although she had previously declared that she did not want to become a minister. Coincidentally or not, it was Kramp-Karrenbauer who rushed to Thuringia before the FDP state chairman Thomas Kemmerich was elected short-term prime minister, in order to prevent Mohring from supporting Kemmerich in vain. Both then resigned: Mohring as Thuringian CDU parliamentary group leader and Kramp-Karrenbauer as CDU national leader. Here, too, some political damage was done.
For studio guest Jörgens it was therefore clear: if the party no longer reaches the voters, they will simply put their cross somewhere else. Seifarth added: The campaign slogans of the parties are all similar. In addition, after the election, the phrases about better listening and responding to the voters. But for the non-party VG boss Gürtler, there was another reason why the CDU lost so much support among voters: “I no longer perceive the CDU in my region.”