Elections to the Bundestag are due in September next year, but this year – in September – there are important elections for the parliaments of three East German states: Saxony, Thuringia and Brandenburg. The AfD leads the polls there, and the immigration policy of Angela Merkel's current and previous governments is particularly unpopular there.
“Attracting immigrants cannot be the only way to fill gaps in the employment of professionals.”
During the mass exodus of migrants in 2015-2016, Wagenknecht, the daughter of a German mother and an Iranian father, criticized the then-chancellor for his “unplanned” policy of opening borders and demanded the expulsion of asylum seekers who had broken German law.
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Now the Sahra Wagenknecht coalition says it needs a new migration policy coupled with education policy. – Attracting immigrants cannot be the only way to fill gaps in the employment of professionals. There are tens of thousands of young people in Germany who do not have a proper education. The priority should be to adapt the children born here to the needs of the market, said Amira Mohammad Ali, who left Die Linke together with Wagenknecht to become leader of the new party (Wagenknecht does not officially head his eponymous coalition. ) told DPA.
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– He takes the first step. Then the structures have to be built, which in Saxony is scheduled to happen in March. There are many unknowns, and Wagenknecht has yet to provide many details. Will there be people to run the districts? – Markus Reichel, CDU member of the Bundestag from Saxony, tells Rzeczpospolita. The state is now ruled by the Christian Democratic Party (CDU).