Saxony-Anhalt Election: Frei Says Germany Cannot Avoid Reforms

Thorsten Frei called his party’s result in Saxony-Anhalt “catastrophic,” but said the election should not push Germany away from the federal government’s reform agenda.

“We have an enormous need for reform in Germany, and therefore it would be the wrong conclusion to believe that we could avoid these reforms,” Frei, the CDU’s parliamentary leader in the Bundestag, told party officials in Berlin. He said Germany needed to overcome stagnation and support early signs of growth.

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We have an enormous need for reform in Germany, and therefore it would be the wrong conclusion to believe that we could avoid these reforms.

The remarks came after the CDU suffered major losses in the state election. The party, which had provided Saxony-Anhalt’s minister-president through Sven Schulze, fell to 17.2%. The AfD, led by top candidate Ulrich Siegmund, emerged as the strongest party with 43.8%, although it failed to win an absolute majority of seats in the state parliament.

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The result was catastrophic and even worse than we had feared.

The SPD has called for the federal government’s reform course to be reconsidered. Frei said the CDU first needed to examine why it had lost so much support in Saxony-Anhalt and address all the factors that contributed to the result.

He urged party members to discuss the outcome clearly but calmly. Returning to strength would require the party to do its homework, he said, including decisions that might not convince everyone immediately because they could impose difficult burdens.

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We need to get Germany moving again, we need to get out of stagnation, and we now need to support the tender shoots of growth.