The new leader of Germany’s ruling Christian Democratic Union (CDU) Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer rallied her party faithful in Ulm on a wet Friday.
AKK, as she is widely known, called on voters to reject anti-EU populism and back “a stronger Europe for the future”. She drew on the country’s period of political reconstruction after the Second World War to make her point.
The CDU leader also criticised heavily Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, after he refused to accept defeat in local elections in Istanbul.
“In these past few days images and reports from Turkey reached us, where a democratic vote in Istanbul was annulled for a single reason, because the result did not suit the regime and the president,” she told a crowd of around 400 supporters.
The electoral board recently announced a decision to re-run Istanbul’s mayoral election, to international outcry. The ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) of Erdogan lost control of Turkey’s city by a narrow margin.