Saxony-Anhalt state election: Merz and Frei criticize deputy Union caucus leader Sepp Müller

Friedrich Merz has accused Sepp Müller of turning against his own party's leading candidate just days before Saxony-Anhalt's state election. The CDU chairman made the criticism publicly after meetings of the party leadership, without naming Müller directly.

“

that nobody among us understood why, just a few days before the election, a deputy chairman of the Bundestag parliamentary group would turn his back on his own top candidate in such a way, as happened in the three days before the election and continued until yesterday.

Merz said he had raised the issue in the party bodies because nobody had understood why a deputy chairman of the Bundestag parliamentary group would undermine the party's own top candidate so close to the vote. He said the conduct had continued from three days before the election through the previous day.

Müller, who comes from Saxony-Anhalt and serves as a deputy leader of the Union parliamentary group, made the comments on September 4 in the Politico podcast “Berlin Playbook.” He said that if polling figures became election results, AfD lead candidate Ulrich Siegmund would have a mandate to form a government.

“

You can always talk about everything, and you can also entertain ideas that I do not share.

Thorsten Frei was asked before a meeting of CDU and CSU lawmakers in the Bundestag whether Merz's rebuke would lead to consequences for Müller in the parliamentary group. Frei said, “You can always talk about everything, and you can also entertain ideas that I do not share.” But he added that making such a statement two days before a state election was “highly problematic.”

“

highly problematic

Frei said Minister-President Sven Schulze and the CDU in Saxony-Anhalt had not regarded Müller's intervention as campaign support. “That is why it is something that would have been better left unsaid,” he said.

“

That is why it is something that would have been better left unsaid.