Status: 08/20/2021 6:09 p.m.
The polls plummet, resentment in the Union is getting louder – Chancellor candidate Armin Laschet is coming under increasing pressure. While some demonstratively support him, others urge him to finally go full throttle.
In view of the poor poll results, the pressure on Chancellor candidate and CDU leader Armin Laschet is increasing noticeably. Laschet had to say “which way he wants Germany”, demanded CSU General Secretary Markus Blume. Regarding his demands on Laschet during the election campaign, Blume told RTL / ntv: “There is only one word that is necessary now: full throttle, we have to accelerate.” Regarding the polls of the Union, he said there was “enormous potential”. This applies “especially when measured against the tremendous popularity that Markus Söder still enjoys”.
In the polls, the Union had recently lost, while the SPD gained and in some cases overtook the Greens to take second place. On the question of chancellor preference, SPD candidate Olaf Scholz is clearly in first place. In the new ARD Germany trend 30 percent each preferred a federal government led by the Union or the SPD – the Union lost five points here, the SPD gained six.
Resignation “better than going under together”
Dissatisfaction is also widespread in the CDU. The “Bild” newspaper reported with reference to groups of participants that the Düsseldorf MP Sylvia Pantel had asked Laschet to draw conclusions if the polls did not improve in two weeks’ time. She was therefore quoted as saying: “It is better to react briefly and painfully than to go under together.” According to information from the dpa, Pantel received sharp headwinds, in particular from Union faction leader Ralph Brinkhaus (CDU) and ex-CDU boss and defense minister Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer. But from MPs it was also said that the situation was problematic and that something had to come from Laschet, practically all MPs saw it that way.
Frustration in internal chats
The “Spiegel” reports that the anger in the CDU about the party’s situation is increasingly reflected in internal chats. In a WhatsApp group with the title “Team CDU”, an election campaigner complained: The main problem is now to make the chancellor candidate “palatable”. “We didn’t know where to hang the Laschet posters so that we do the least damage,” he wrote according to “Spiegel”. “In the end, you hang them up where, in case of doubt, few people will vote for us anyway.” Another group member described the current communication strategy as “election campaign from hell”.
The Union will start the hot election campaign phase on Saturday with a rally in Berlin, in which Laschet, Söder and Chancellor Angela Merkel, among others, will take part.
Laschet wants to rely on the team
Laschet expressed himself in a Union parliamentary group meeting, to which he was involved, and said that he wanted to rely more on a team than before. “We have to show more heads and show that we have a strong team,” he said, according to the participants. He announced that the topics would also make the prominent heads of the Union visible in a team in the next few weeks. “While the SPD has to hide its people, we can proudly show our competent heads. Both from the federal states and from the parliamentary group,” he was quoted as saying. The breadth of the Union should become visible.
In the meeting of the members of the Bundestag, therefore, displeasure with the polls and Laschet became clear. A good five weeks before the general election on September 26, Laschet apparently tried to take the lead in the parliamentary group. The CDU boss made it clear that the federal election was about a choice of direction. In the election campaign, the differences to the SPD and the Greens would have to be worked out. Laschet mentioned the topics of economy, finance, internal security and foreign policy.
Söder guarantees “full support”
CSU leader Markus Söder said in the parliamentary group meeting that there would be “unity” in the election campaign and “full support” for Laschet. Söder warned that it “could be a close race” and demanded: “We have to fight now.” CDU Vice Jens Spahn ruled out that Laschet would be replaced by Söder as candidate for chancellor. When asked whether he was 100 percent sure about this, he told the “Mannheimer Morgen”: “Yes. And you wouldn’t get any other answer from Markus Söder either.” Regarding the election campaign, Spahn said: “The next five weeks count.”
Attack on FDP
Meanwhile, the general secretaries of the CDU and CSU shot themselves at the FDP. “In this election, the FDP is no guarantee for a middle-class government,” said CDU General Secretary Paul Ziemiak to “Spiegel”. “Those who vote for the FDP have to accept that in the end they will wake up at the cabinet table with Saskia Esken and Kevin Kühnert.” SPD leader Esken and her vice-president Kühnert are assigned to the left wing of the SPD.
Laschet announces “planning acceleration package”
In the event of a victory in the federal election, Laschet intends to present a “planning acceleration package” in the first hundred days of his term of office, which should also include a “fast-track approval process”. He will “tackle this project first of all”, Laschet told the “Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung”. In order to maintain growth and competitiveness and not be left behind internationally, one must be able to “plan, approve and implement” more quickly in Germany.
The accelerated procedure should, among other things, apply to power lines, wind turbines and railway lines as well as measures to improve living conditions in rural areas, he told the newspaper. “This benefits people directly: faster construction times, faster internet in rural areas, faster rail connections.”