For a moment you pause in amazement during Armin Laschet’s speech on Schützenplatz in Olpe in the Sauerland. Can this be? Did he really say that? Yes, he did: The Union’s candidate for chancellor accused Olaf Scholz, the competitor of the SPD, of a “sleeping car election campaign”. This is remarkable and a bit bold because of the three applicants for the Chancellery, Laschet in particular has to defend himself against the accusation of approaching the matter too sleepy-headed.
The criticism also comes from his own party, which is now almost relieved to note that its candidate for chancellor has started his “tour of Germany”, which was initially postponed with reference to the flood disaster. Officially, the Union’s election campaign will not open until next Saturday, when Laschet will appear in Berlin’s Tempodrom together with Chancellor Angela Merkel and CSU boss Markus Söder. But in the past few days Laschet has already completed a number of events, first in Saxony and Brandenburg, then over the weekend in Rhineland-Palatinate, Hesse and just in Olpe, where the North Rhine-Westphalian Junge Union prepared a home game for him.
“We knew about Laschet’s weaknesses. But now he’s not even showing the strengths.”
Undoubtedly, the candidate Laschet has shifted up a gear. For many in the CDU, this can only be the beginning. When the federal executive board meets this Monday, the party friends urgently expect further impulses from their chairman.
The old rival and current colleague Friedrich Merz thanks Laschet in Olpe quite elegantly for the fact that his speech was “very combative”. Then he adds: “I was really happy about that. The Bundestag election on September 26th, says Merz, was “not decided”. Given the downward trend of the Union in the polls, that is “hopefully everyone will know”. Last Wednesday, a Forsa survey recorded only 23 percent for the CDU and CSU, 20 for the Greens and 19 for the SPD. The Chancellor’s race has become an open three-way battle.
Anyone who speaks to members of the CDU’s federal executive board these days will therefore hear a lot of desperation. “We knew about Laschet’s weaknesses,” says one board member. “But now he’s not even showing the strengths that he had so far.” Laschet had also won the competition for the candidacy for chancellor against Markus Söder because his supporters relied on his ability to work in a team, which he had proven in North Rhine-Westphalia. But now there is no team. So far, Laschet has only brought Merz to the fore. There is no team, let alone one in which young people, women, migrants, East Germans or people who stand in a special way for climate protection or worker protection also play a role.
“Laschet must quickly understand what we have been telling him for weeks: that a team must come now,” says one of the CDU leaders. If Laschet does not go ahead on this matter in the board meeting this Monday, he will have to listen to a lot.
But it is not that easy to go ahead. If Laschet were to present an election campaign team, he would have to disavow the incumbent federal ministers of the Union. Andreas Scheuer and Anja Karliczek should probably no longer want to be appointed to a future team. Peter Altmaier and Julia Klöckner have also ceased to be draft horses for a long time. Laschet also has a problem for men in NRW. If he were to form a shadow cabinet, he would have to alienate several party groups, because such a cabinet cannot only consist of North Rhine-Westphalia. Laschet would have to leave out some of the party leaders: for example, Union parliamentary group leader Ralph Brinkhaus, General Secretary Paul Ziemiak, economic wing boss Carsten Linnemann or the foreign politician Norbert Röttgen and the head of the workers wing, Karl-Josef Laumann.
The directly elected MPs could get uncomfortable
But if you want to become chancellor, you have to be able to solve such problems. “Then he should just appoint a team of experts, or a team that is so large that it is clear that not all can become ministers,” says a CDU executive who has always been for Laschet – meanwhile regularly at a snail’s pace of his candidate for chancellor desperate.
On Monday evening after the board meeting, Laschet wants to continue his “tour of Germany” in northern Germany, but he is running out of time. Almost 95 percent of the Union MPs are directly elected – if they are afraid of losing their constituency, they can get quite uncomfortable. This Monday, the municipalities will start sending out election notifications. Because of the pandemic, it is possible that, for the first time in a federal election, more voters will vote by letter than at the ballot box. From now on, every day is election day.