The parliamentary group will now request that the parliament be dissolved, thereby clearing the way for new elections.
Chancellor Angela Merkel (CDU) has called for Kemmerich’s election to be reversed. The process is “unforgivable” and therefore “the result must also be reversed,” said Merkel on Thursday in Pretoria, South Africa.
The election of Kemmerich was a “bad day for democracy”, complained Merkel. The values and basic beliefs of the CDU were not adhered to. Under no circumstances should the Union take part in a government under Kemmerich, the former CDU chairwoman warned.
CSU chief Markus Söder accused the Thuringian FDP of ignoring the will of voters. Söder warned that someone whose party won five percent of the vote in the state election should become prime minister shows that there will be no blessing on the matter. The CDU would lose credibility if it supported this. Therefore there must be new elections.
The chairman of the AfD parliamentary group in the Bundestag, Alexander Gauland, replied in Berlin: “We are available for new elections in Thuringia and in the federal government at any time.”
The Tagesspiegel had already reported in the morning that FDP leader Christian Lindner wanted Kemmerich to resign. On Wednesday, Lindner said that the Thuringian FDP had acted on their own.
Kemmerich had initially refused to resign. On ZDF, he said that he had run as a candidate for the democratic center and was largely elected in a free and secret election, enabling him to form a government.