Brandenburg’s BSW state chairman Robert Crumbach is keeping the possibility of participating in the government after the state election open and does not want to participate in government at any price. “You can also be very effective as an opposition,” said the alliance’s top candidate Sahra Wagenknecht to the German Press Agency. “We will contribute in any case. It is just a question of what role.” With regard to a possible participation in the government, he said: “Absolutely not at any price, but we have fundamental values that are important to us and we will not give them up.”
The BSW state chairman names the prerequisites for participation in the government. “It must then be clear that we are not a cheap majority provider who is ripped off by the other party due to a lack of experience,” said Crumbach. “Firstly, we have the experience, and secondly, we are not available for it. We say we want to do things differently and that has to be found.”
BSW state leader sees differences with CDU
Crumbach sees differences between the BSW and the CDU, for example in education policy. “I believe that the CDU and we, for example, would differ considerably in our analysis of the problem – even if we now try to describe commonalities,” he said. “The CDU believes that children should be separated earlier, that they should leave primary school after the fourth grade and go to secondary schools. That is not at all what we think.”
The BSW regional leader referred to “significant reservations” in his party about CDU regional leader Jan Redmann’s drunken driving on an electric scooter. “I always said at the beginning, and I still stand by it, that everyone is allowed to make mistakes, but not everyone in my party is as relaxed about the fact that a convicted criminal is in the regional government as I am,” said Crumbach. Redmann admitted to making a mistake. He must pay a fine of 8,000 euros.
The BSW regional head rules out a coalition with the AfD, which is classified as a suspected right-wing extremist party by the Office for the Protection of the Constitution in Brandenburg. He referred to a motion by the AfD in the state parliament in which it called for a ban on asylum seekers attending public events following the fatal knife attack in Solingen. “It reminds me very much of the Nuremberg Laws – and I believe that is also the intention. And I cannot work with someone like that,” he told the dpa. The National Socialists’ main aim with the Nuremberg Race Laws was to deprive Jewish citizens of their rights. In the “Nordkurier” newspaper, Crumbach had expressed his openness to considering an AfD ban.
However, Crumbach does not rule out supporting AfD proposals: “If we believe a proposal is correct in substance, then we will agree to it,” he told the news portal t-online.
Crumbach sees populism as praise
The University of Potsdam wrote in a study that the Sahra Wagenknecht alliance can be classified as a populist party. Crumbach takes this in his stride. “I believe that politics fundamentally has populist elements,” he said, citing the first deportation flight to Afghanistan in three years in August as an example. “I know where the term comes from,” he said. “I see it more as a compliment.” Populism comes from the Latin word “populus” and means people.
The Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance founded the regional association in Brandenburg in May. In the most recent RBB survey by Infratest dimap, the BSW received 15 percent, which was one percentage point less than in July. A new state parliament will be elected in Brandenburg on September 22nd.
Researchers: Co-governing would be a “dangerous experiment”
Brandenburg’s Prime Minister Dietmar Woidke (SPD) had expressed a wait-and-see attitude in the “Tagesspiegel” newspaper as to whether cooperation would be possible. He described it as inconceivable that party leader Wagenknecht would want to help steer the country’s fortunes.
Political scientist Jan Philipp Thomeczek spoke of a possible BSW participation in government after the election as a “dangerous experiment”. “If this fails, the chances of entering the Bundestag next year would of course be massively jeopardized,” he said.
© dpa-infocom, dpa:240908-930-226389/1
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