Alexander Gauland
Thüringen
Election
German Bundestag,
February 13, 2020, Plenarprotokoll 19/146, pp. 18267-18268
[Alexander Gauland is a chairman of the
AfD delegation in the German Bundestag. Walter Ulbricht was a leader of
communist East Germany of which the MfS, the Ministry for State Security, was
the home of the infamous Stasi, the state security police. Bodo Ramelow (Linke) is the former minister-president of the state of Thüringen
who was recently voted out of office.]
Herr President. Ladies and gentlemen.
If an extra-terrestrial had glanced at Germany, let us say, six weeks
ago, and now in recent days once again, then he must have had the feeling that
a meteor had struck and produced a putsch to which the CDU chairman has now fallen
victim. Yet, ladies and gentlemen, it was neither a heavenly stone’s throw nor
a putsch but a democratic legislative member elected minister-president by
other democrats in a German parliament.
Sönke Rix (SPD): That
can also be false!
That is the natural and democratic way of the world.
Marian Wendt
(CDU/CSU): Yet not all were democrats!
Franziska Brantner
(Greens): That is not true!
Ladies and gentlemen, it is also natural and democratic that a party,
which sees that its own candidate has no chance, votes for one of the other,
more closely aligned candidates who had promised to vote for the removal [Abwahl] of the previous minister-president. So
far, ladies and gentlemen, so natural.
Sönke Rix (SPD): Yet
you want to hunt the Federal government!
What is not normal in a democracy is to “rescind” [„rückgängig“
machten] the results, as was formulated by the
Chancellor, because the decision rendered appears to be ideologically
disreputable.
Eberhard
Brecht (SPD): Politics is not mathematics.
Since legislative members are free in
their voting behavior. Here, not even Walter Ulbricht would have followed Frau
Merkel. For whom the motto still is: We must have all in hand, but it must
appear to be democratic. And that never appears democratic here.
Matthias
Zimmer (CDU/CSU): Exactly as with you!
It is not normal, ladies and gentlemen,
when the leftist street terror of so-called civil society wishes to seek to exert
unconstitutional pressure against the relatives and offices of the FDP. The
Linke obviously can always use some kind of fascists.
Steffen
Schmidt (Greens): You have enough!
Ladies and gentlemen, we know today
that the confidence vote against Willy Brandt in the year 1972 failed in an
MfS-purchased election. No one then or later had the idea to consider the
successful Brandt years as illegitimate. Measured by the new logic, AfD votes
are dirtier than the MfS-purchased votes.
Kerstin
Steinke (Linke): Yes, that is so!
Martin
Reichardt (AfD): And the FDP there says yes to that! That is really pitiful!
If that is the case, dear bürgerliche
colleagues, in the future you will have to have frequent recourse to Görlitz
coalitions, all against one, which can only make us stronger. I wonder, have
you actually thought through all of that? The next step might then be to lift
the ban on cooperation with the Linke, as recommended by Herr Günther. I fear
that soon Herr Günther may replace Herr Ziemak –
Wilfried
Oellers (CDU/CSU): All are agreed, he will not do that!
– since, according to his logic, the
horseshoe theory being false, the AfD cannot be equated with the Linke.
Sönke Rix
(SPD): That is agreed!
Eva Högl (SPD):
Exactly so!
Christoph Matschie
(SPD): That is so! Agreed!
Agreed! At one end of the horseshoe is a democratic, people’s party, at
the other end the heirs of the Wall murderers –
Anton Hofreiter
(Greens): At the other end are fascists!
– who
continue to demand expropriation and socialism.
Should the
CDU, contrary to what Herr Ziemak now says, go this way and, for example, help
Bodo Ramelow into office –
Paul Ziemak (CDU): You want to help
him!
– “then no
one really knows what the Christian Democrats stand for”, as formulated by a
commentator in “Welt.”
Franziska Brantner (Greens): Yet you have
said that one should vote for him! You yourself said that! For what do you wish
to reproach the CDU?
Ladies and gentlemen, for us, that can only be right. We would then be
the only opposition party –
Matthias Zimmer (CDU/CSU): Obstruction party!
– and the Union would accompany the SPD on the way to meaninglessness.
It is good that Konrad Adenhuaer and Helmut Kohl did not live to see this!
Kirsten Tackmann
(Linke): Turning over in the grave!
Uilli Nissen (SPD): It
would be nice if we did not live to see you!
It is simply unfortunate, dear colleagues of the CDU, that a long-term,
bürgerliche majority might then no longer be
an option.
Thank you.
Sven
Lehman (Linke): You are not a bürgerliche party!
[Translated by Todd Martin]
