For the first time, a Berlin technology personality has spoken openly in favor of breaking the cordon sanitaire against the extreme right. In a post about the elections.
After the implosion of Olaf Scholz’s coalition on November 6, early elections should be held on February 23, 2025. According to the latest polls, only an alliance between the CDU and the Social Democratic Party (SPD), possibly with the Greens, has a chance of obtaining an absolute majority. So far, the CDU has ruled out any alliance with the extreme right, to which 19% of voting intentions are attributed.
“Open to a coalition with AfD, imposing the condition that no member of the openly radical far-right party assume political responsibility”suggests Reber to Friedrich Merz, president of the CDU and probable future chancellor.
A political agreement now
The businessman and investor who founded the start-up Wunderlist, sold in 2015 to Microsoft, introduces himself as “former Green voter”. He fears that the next coalition, if it does not include the AfD, will cause the far-right party to become the country’s main political force in the 2029 elections, something he says he wants to avoid. Therefore, he recommends to Mr. Merz a political agreement now, which would require “Keep Germany in the European Union and the Eurozone”.
“With AfD, defend a German policy, close to citizens and European”he wrote, asking in particular “a strong economic policy” and one “radical debureaucratization”.
The publication was included on Friday, November 15, in the highly followed newsletter of another celebrity on the German technology scene, Frank Thelen. “I also think that in a democracy the current almost 20% of AfD voters must be taken into account, although I wish it had never reached this point”, he wrote, saying that he wanted “open a fair dialogue”.
The rest of his letter praises the initiative entrusted to billionaire Elon Musk in the future Trump administration, the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, which aims “dismantle the government bureaucracy”, in the words of the president-elect. It is difficult, in this context, not to consider that Elon Musk’s participation in the Trump campaign contributed to demonizing the American president-elect in the eyes of some German technology entrepreneurs.
You have 20.02% of this article left to read. The rest is reserved for subscribers.
