How Reiner Haseloff keeps the AfD at a distance

AOn the evening of June 6, 2021, Reiner Haseloff celebrated his greatest triumph: His CDU was in Saxony-Anhalt with 37.1 percent, almost as good as the CSU in Bavaria. The AfD had clearly left Haseloff behind, more than 16 percentage points behind the Union. Haseloff is now leading a coalition with the SPD and FDP, a “centrist government,” as he always emphasizes. Since then, the Christian Democrats have been asking themselves, not only in the East: How did the man manage to do it?

It was probably the mix. Haseloff has always made it clear that …