Ahead of State Election, Willingmann Says Not Everything Is Collapsing in Saxony-Anhalt

With Saxony-Anhalt’s state election approaching, SPD lead candidate Armin Willingmann is urging voters to look beyond the campaign’s bleakest messages. The state, he said, is not on the verge of collapse.

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Perhaps not as dramatic

Speaking on ZDF’s “Morning Magazine,” Willingmann said the economic situation was “perhaps not as dramatic” as many people perceived. He criticized the repeated impression created during the campaign that everything was falling apart, saying that was not the case.

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We have problems, like other states do. We are currently embedded in a global political framework. We can do little to change that, but we must stand up to it.

The environment remains difficult. Saxony-Anhalt, like other German states, is operating within a wider geopolitical framework that it can influence only to a limited extent, Willingmann said. Even so, he argued that the state must do what it can to improve its economic position and push back against those pressures.

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There really is light at the end of the tunnel.

Willingmann also highlighted more hopeful forecasts for Saxony-Anhalt. Economic growth projections for the year have doubled from the previous forecast, he said. “There really is light at the end of the tunnel,” he said, urging people to look toward that prospect rather than spend too much time “looking in the rear-view mirror.”

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Let’s look there, and not so often in the rear-view mirror.