German Minister of Transport and Justice Volker Wissing has attributed the poor performance of his former party, the FDP, to the leadership of Christian Lindner. Wissing told the “Tagesspiegel” that leading the FDP in the government of the Ampel coalition and re-binding it to the Union was a strategic mistake. According to Wissing, the FDP thereby reduced its independence and decreased its voter potential, a mistake that had been made before in the 2013 extra-parliamentary opposition. Wissing also criticized the party’s decision to question its own entry into the Ampel government shortly after.
At the same time, Wissing warned his former party against a rightward shift. He said that the FDP had only achieved marginal results wherever it had pursued a right-libertarian course, citing the 2021 Brandenburg state election, in which the FDP received only 0.8% of the votes. He also pointed out that Lindner had recently suggested that Germany adopt right-libertarian policies, modeled after those of Elon Musk’s advisor and the Argentine president Javier Milei. Wissing emphasized that the right-libertarian wing had been repeatedly discredited by election results.
Instead, Wissing called on the FDP to re-open itself to coalitions with all democratic parties of the center, after Lindner had recently explicitly ruled out cooperation with the Greens. Wissing said that the FDP must be a government party willing to take responsibility and that it will not be elected as an opposition party, but rather as a corrective in government. “The FDP must focus on its core and regain trust” Wissing concluded.