Leaked Document Forces Resignation of FDP Secretaries in Germany
Bijan Djir-Sarai, 2024. X/ @pizz4lov3r
November 29, 2024 Hour: 8:14 am
The Free Democratic Party group planned to leave the governing coalition before Chancellor Olaf Scholz ended it.
On Friday, Bijan Djir-Sarai, the Secretary General of Germany’s Free Democratic Party (FDP), resigned after the revelation of a document indicating that his party had planned to exit the governing coalition before Chancellor Olaf Scholz ended it. Previously, Djir-Sarai had denied the existence of such plans and dismissed media reports on the matter as “outrageous.”
RELATED:
Germany, France and the UK to Discuss Iran’s Nuclear Programme
The document, published by the FDP itself and attributed to the party’s executive secretary, Carsten Reymann—who also announced his resignation on Friday—outlined a plan to leave the coalition. It detailed various communication strategy options and explicitly used the term “D-Day.”
In a brief press appearance lasting less than a minute, during which Djir-Sarai refused to take questions, he apologized for providing inaccurate information about an internal party document he claimed not to have seen beforehand.
For his part, Reymann stated that he had submitted his resignation to FDP leader Christian Lindner because he wanted the party to renew itself ahead of the snap elections on February 23. “The FDP is facing an important general election that will decide Germany’s direction. During the campaign, the FDP must go full throttle and avoid personnel debates that could hinder it,” he said.
The FDP was the smallest partner in the governing coalition formed over the past three years with the Social Democratic Party (SPD) and the Greens. The FDP’s distancing from its coalition partners had already pointed to an impending end, which accelerated after Chancellor Scholz dismissed Lindner as Finance Minister.
Following that decision, the FDP attempted to blame Scholz for the coalition’s collapse, but reports began to emerge suggesting that the liberals had a plan to leave the government. The published FDP document included a draft announcement of their departure from the coalition and considered several potential dates for making the move public.
In most recent voter intention polls, the FDP is currently below the 5% threshold, which would leave the party out of the Bundestag, the lower house of parliament.
The FDP has long played the role of a “kingmaker” party in German politics. It was an ally of the conservative bloc formed by the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and the Christian Social Union (CSU) during the administrations of Konrad Adenauer and Ludwig Erhard. Later, it became part of the “social-liberal coalition” led consecutively by Chancellors Willy Brandt and Helmut Schmidt.
In 1982, the FDP turned its back on that coalition, supporting a constructive vote of no confidence initiated by the CDU/CSU, which brought Helmut Kohl to power. Since then, the FDP—having been in government throughout Kohl’s 16-year tenure—has been viewed as the natural partner of the CDU/CSU. Its entry into Scholz’s government was therefore regarded with skepticism from the outset.
teleSUR/ JF Source: EFE