Bodo Ramelow has a short fuse.

This was felt on Tuesday by the makers of Campact, an association which, according to its own statement, has set itself the goal of fighting “for progressive politics” by means of online campaigns.

In this federal election, Campact calls in six of the 299 constituencies (Hanover II, Leverkusen, Dresden I, Lahn-Dill, Southern Thuringia and Zollernalb-Sigmaringen) to vote out "climate blockers and right wing extremists" and to support the most promising opposing candidate.

In southern Thuringia, according to the state of affairs, the SPD applicant Frank Ullrich has the greatest chance of defeating CDU candidate Hans-Georg Maaßen - which is why Campact not only drums for electing Ullrich, but also wants to get supporters of other parties to give their first vote To give to social democrats.

Stefan Locke

Correspondent for Saxony and Thuringia based in Dresden.

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In the case of the Greens, that already worked.

Federal Managing Director Michael Kellner campaigned to support Ullrich, not his own candidate, in the 196 constituency.

“A vote for him protects democracy and prevents a right-wing extremist vote from moving into the Bundestag,” says the Green politician, who himself comes from Thuringia.

The Thuringian Greens grudgingly agreed to do so.

Now the number of Green voters in southern Thuringia is manageable;

In 2017, the party won 2.6 percent of the first votes here.

The Left, on the other hand, got 18.2 percent, which is why Campact has been increasing the pressure on their applicant Sandro Witt for months to postpone his ambitions.

Witt is not impressed by this, on the contrary. The 40-year-old politician, who works as the vice-head of the German trade union federation in Hessen-Thuringia, gave the Campact makers a more than clear rebuff in July and accused them of "engaging in direct, non-political, aggressive campaigns against my candidacy" to turn. "I take note of this non-political campaign & continue to make my political offer," wrote Witt on Twitter. Since then he has fought twice: against political competitors on the one hand and campaigners on the other. For example, he is accused of holding on to his candidacy out of a mere power calculation.

Witt is outraged because such accusations negate his decades of commitment, he explains. "The answer to Hans-Georg Maaßen and his extreme right-wing, anti-democratic and anti-pluralist ideology should not be a restriction of the democratic freedom of opinion and choice, but on the contrary to strengthen it." Witt receives support from several state politicians on the left, including the one Parliamentary group leader in the state parliament.

Because the Campact makers got stuck in this way, they played over gangs. Under the heading "Now prevent Maaßen!" They call on their website to send "personal, freely formulated messages" to Thuringia's Prime Minister Bodo Ramelow and the Federal Chairwoman of the Left, Susanne Hennig-Wellsow, so that they can call for Ullrich to be elected. With Ramelow, however, they had gotten to the wrong one. "Campact has apparently lost all orientation," he answered one of the letter writers publicly. Under no circumstances would he persuade Witt to withdraw his candidacy. One could not complain about Russia that the state apparatus would not even allow candidates there, and at the same time demand "now similar methods from me as an official".He will neither tacitly participate “in this coercion and inadmissible manipulation of the Bundestag election” nor allow himself to be “used as a henchman or tool”.

At the request of the FAZ, Campact rejected the allegations. "Campact's current call to stand together collectively in the fight against the right to equate with the conditions at the Duma election is grotesque," said Campact board member Felix Kolb. Witt was not asked to resign from his candidacy, but to strategically elect Frank Ullrich with the first vote in order to prevent Maaßen. "The left is currently evading this responsibility for democracy." In July, however, Campact Witt had expressly asked to give up his candidacy and to line up behind Ullrich. Witt says that joint candidacies should only be a democratic means in exceptional cases, for example "to prevent right-wing occupations of democratic administrations".