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After his dismissal as Minister of the Interior of Saxony-Anhalt, Holger Stahlknecht also gives up his office as CDU regional chief.
The 56-year-old announced his resignation for December 8th in a personal statement on Friday evening.
Saxony-Anhalt's Prime Minister Reiner Haseloff (CDU) had previously dismissed the Interior Minister.
He thus drew the consequences of an unsettled interview on the coalition dispute over the broadcasting fee and the announcement of a CDU minority government, as the state chancellery announced.
Stahlknecht had categorically excluded his faction from giving in.
“That is not negotiable.
The CDU will not vacate their position, ”said the 56-year-old of the“ Magdeburger Volksstimme ”.
The party stands "without ifs and buts" on the side of the parliamentary group.
"We form ranks."
The CDU parliamentary group in Saxony-Anhalt is - like the AfD - against an increase in the broadcasting fee.
Stahlknecht explained in the interview that the parliamentary group should not allow itself to be dissuaded from a conviction "that the AfD now also says that it has the same opinion as we do in one place or another".
The CDU should not “say goodbye to its position just because the others distance themselves from the CDU for tactical reasons”.
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Looking at the coalition partners, he said: “We are sticking to our position.
The ball is now in the field of the SPD and the Greens.
I assume that both are aware of their political responsibility and will not end the coalition of their own accord. "
Prime Minister Haseloff justified the dismissal by saying that Stahlknecht had "publicly raised the possibility of a coalition breach and the possibility of a minority government formed solely by the CDU".
The Prime Minister continues to pursue the goal of leading the "government capable of action".
The relationship of trust with Stahlknecht was "seriously disturbed".
Stahlknecht said in the evening that he had given the interview to defend his "party against the allegations of the political opponent, the party is looking for a rapprochement with the AfD".
That is an unfounded claim.
The form and content of the interview were correct for the party and himself.
“However, the interpretations developed against the intention.
That too needs to be recognized. "
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The 56-year-old has been Minister of the Interior since 2011, has been head of the CDU since 2018 and for years was considered to be the successor to Prime Minister Haseloff.
Only a few weeks ago, the incumbent thwarted this ambition and announced that he would run for a third term as the top CDU candidate.
Greens: No defusing of the broadcast dispute
Meanwhile, the Greens parliamentary group in the state parliament of Saxony-Anhalt welcomed the dismissal of Stahlknecht.
"I consider the decision to be appropriate and appropriate," said parliamentary group leader Cornelia Lüddemann of the German press agency.
"Mr. Stahlknecht announced a regicide on the open stage and prepared a minority government with the help of the AfD," said Lüddemann.
However, Lüddemann does not see the dispute over the radio broadcasts defused by the personnel.
After all, Stahlknecht is also the CDU chairman and his positions are widespread in the party.
The vote on the State Broadcasting Treaty planned for mid-December is therefore also "a vote on the coalition".
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Left parliamentary group leader Dietmar Bartsch called Haseloff's dismissal of the interior minister a "smear comedy".
"The CDU Saxony-Anhalt is a troop in ruins and belongs to the opposition as quickly as possible," said Bartsch to the editorial network Germany (RND).
Kenya has become Afghanistan, said Bartsch, referring to the colors of the flags of Kenya and Afghanistan and the party colors of the coalition in Saxony-Anhalt made up of the CDU, SPD and the Greens.
"The leadership vacuum of the federal CDU is shockingly visible here," said Bartsch.
The background to the broadcast dispute in Saxony-Anhalt, which threatens the existence of the black-red-green government alliance in Magdeburg, is the CDU parliamentary group's announcement that it will vote against the new state treaty amending the media.
The core of this is the increase in fees for public service broadcasting on January 1st by 86 cents per month to EUR 18.36.
Stahlknecht had justified his party's no to a higher radio fee, among other things with criticism of the reporting by public broadcasters.
Among other things, they did not depict “the transformation process in the eastern German states” and the upheavals associated with it.
"The public broadcasters occasionally do not report at eye level, but with the raised index finger of moralization."
He observed “a moralization prescribed by an intellectual minority” that is completely different from what determines people's everyday lives, said Stahlknecht.
He related this, among other things, to gender.
“Nobody talks about gender language every day.
And nobody thinks every day whether what they say is always so politically correct.
The impression must not be created that people get the feeling that they are no longer allowed to say what they think. "