Söder Backs CDU Candidate in Saxony-Anhalt Election Push
- Markus Söder rallied around 500 CDU supporters in Wernigerode two weeks before the Saxony-Anhalt state election, endorsing lead candidate Sven Schulze.
- Söder branded AfD leader Alice Weidel's calls to leave the euro and Schengen area the worst economic policy Germany could pursue.
- CDU candidate Sven Schulze challenged AfD rival Ulrich Siegmund's nostalgia-driven campaign slogan, invoking GDR-era restrictions on the Brocken mountain as a warning against
With two weeks remaining before the Saxony-Anhalt state election, Bavarian Minister-President Markus Söder brought his characteristic blend of sharp political messaging and crowd-pleasing wit to the Harz region on Monday, drawing around 500 supporters to the HKK Hotel in Wernigerode for a rally alongside CDU lead candidate Sven Schulze.
Economy takes centre stage
Söder, the 59-year-old CSU leader, wasted little time in setting the tone. Jobs, energy prices, bureaucracy and investment, he argued, were the defining issues of this campaign. Declaring his personal support for Schulze, he said that in economically difficult times it was essential to have a head of government who understood business. He also called for the east of Germany to play a greater role in national affairs, suggesting that fiscal transfers under the inter-regional equalisation mechanism would be better directed towards regions that govern well economically.
Brussels came in for pointed criticism. "Every week a new idea comes out of Brussels," Söder told the audience, drawing laughter. He sharpened the jibe moments later: "When I ask ChatGPT, I get friendlier answers than from a government office."
Attack on AfD's economic platform
Söder reserved his sharpest language for the Alternative für Deutschland. AfD leader Alice Weidel, 47, had renewed calls in an ARD summer interview for Germany to leave both the euro and the Schengen area. Söder called this "the worst economic shredding programme we could pursue."
Schulze, 47, took direct aim at the AfD's campaign slogan. His challenger, Ulrich Siegmund, 35, has been campaigning on the promise of returning Germany to a better past. Schulze's response was pointed: which past, exactly? The 1990s, he asked, with their mass unemployment and shortage of apprenticeships? "Or the GDR itself?" He reminded the audience that the Brocken mountain, clearly visible from Wernigerode's outskirts, was entirely off-limits to ordinary citizens during the communist era. "We want to go back neither to the nineties nor to the GDR," he said, to sustained applause.
Leistung and the meister jibe
When Söder turned to the subject of merit and skilled trades, the room was firmly with him. "The fact that the very concept of achievement is so demonised in this country is one of Germany's fundamental problems," he said, arguing that those who contribute more should ultimately take home more. He drew an equivalence between academic master's degrees and the German craft Meister qualification, before adding, to fresh laughter, that he had yet to encounter a Meister who had been caught submitting plagiarised work.
The evening's consistent thread — economic pragmatism over ideology, a forward-looking rather than nostalgic politics — appeared to resonate with the crowd. Whether it will translate into votes when Saxony-Anhalt goes to the polls in a fortnight remains to be seen.
