Regional politicians within his own conservative party are, however, increasingly questioning whether such promises can be upheld given the strength of parties at both ends of the political spectrum.
Kretschmer’s comments are widely seen as an attempt to start a debate about how to govern after the September elections without radically breaking pre-election promises and further eroding the CDU’s credibility.
It is an approach that is not welcomed by party leaders in Berlin.
“We are currently in the midst of a fierce political battle in three federal states, particularly with — or against — the AfD,” Steffen Bilger, one of the CDU’s parliamentary group leaders in the Bundestag, told Deutschlandfunk on Thursday. “And that’s what we should be focusing on right now, rather than starting debates like this.”
Politicians from the center-left Social Democratic Party have, meanwhile, demanded clarity from their federal coalition partners. The lead candidate for the Berlin election called on the CDU to “come clean” about whether it still ruled out cooperation with the AfD at regional level, while urging the party to open up to the far left.
“The CDU should finally admit that it can cooperate with the Left Party, because it’s simply already doing so,” Steffen Krach told news portal t-online Wednesday in view of the minority governments it leads in Saxony and Thuringia. “Anyone who now demonizes the Left Party and equates it with the AfD is deceiving voters,” he added.