Confidante of the FDP boss: Lindner’s people

Christian Lindner wants to participate in government after the federal election. On his way there, the FDP boss also relies on confidants and companions from NRW. But who are they?

FDP leader and top candidate Christian Lindner comes from North Rhine-Westphalia. He was born and raised here, and it is here that he has also become a political figure in German politics. In his 20+ years at the forefront of politics, he has experienced many ups and downs.

In North Rhine-Westphalia he was once the youngest member of the state parliament, general secretary, party and parliamentary group leader. Some still miss his lively speeches in the state parliament today. In view of this political career, it is not surprising that close confidants of the Liberal also come from North Rhine-Westphalia. A selection:

Marco Buschmann

Above all, Marco Buschmann, 43 years old, federal manager and member of the Bundestag, should be mentioned. The trained lawyer comes from the Ruhr area, from Gelsenkirchen, and is probably the most important and closest of the few Lindner confidants.

Anyone who wants to understand the relationship between the two has to look back into one of the darkest chapters of the FDP. After leaving the Bundestag in 2013, the FDP was on the brink: seats gone, apparatus gone, money gone. From then on, public attention threatened to become a permanent shortage. It was Buschmann, then general secretary of the FDP in North Rhine-Westphalia, who now took over the office of federal managing director at the request of party leader Lindner.

The two already knew each other well from days together with the Young Liberals. It connects more than just the political. Buschmann, with the authority of the boss at his back, turned the party inside out, realigned it and evoked the “turnaround of the FDP”. The unconditional focus of the election campaigns for the NRW state elections in spring 2017 and later, in autumn, for the Bundestag on the top candidate Lindner was a triumph for the Liberals.

Buschmann then set the tone in the parliamentary group that was to be rebuilt. The frequent reader devours books on the assembly line, and he wrote one himself. It may be because of his own experiences with the finiteness of political existence that he thinks about “The mortal soul of freedom”, as the title is called.

Johannes Vogel

Johannes Vogel sets a decidedly social liberal accent. The proven labor and pension expert of the FDP parliamentary group is 39 years old and Secretary General of the regional association in Düsseldorf. He and Lindner once attended the same grammar school and were long considered close companions. Vogel comes from Wermelskirchen, Lindner also spent his youth there, near Cologne.

For Lindner, Vogel is indispensable in the role of chief organizer in North Rhine-Westphalia with a view to the state elections next spring. But you can also hear in the party that the ambitious bird in Berlin recently felt a little politically underutilized. In any case, he ran his successful candidacy for deputy federal chairman in May largely on his own.

Vogel is looking for an independent profile, above all he wants to counter the impression that the FDP is merely an association for market economy and tax cuts. Vogel does not correspond at all to the image of the cool neoliberal, he emphasizes the breadth of content of the Free Democrats. Vogel, too, belongs to the generation that has experienced the mistakes of the past up close and does not want to repeat them. It is possible that the relationship between him and Lindner used to be closer, but depending on how things develop in Berlin, the eloquent bird would certainly be someone who would recommend himself for higher tasks.

Joachim Stamp

Joachim Stamp is Lindner’s successor in North Rhine-Westphalia. The 51-year-old is party leader there and also vice-prime minister in the coalition with the CDU, i.e. Armin Laschet’s deputy.

The Minister for Family and Integration also wants to make a name for himself in national politics. He represents an emphatically modern refugee and immigration policy that combines labor migration, humane refugee aid and the deportation of offenders. He wants a system change and openly takes on Federal Interior Minister Horst Seehofer, whom he considers to be a refusal to work when it comes to migration.

Stamp would also like to be the face of the FDP for migration and integration issues in public and to recommend himself for tasks in a possible government participation in Berlin. He knows that this only works if he receives nationwide media coverage, and there is still room for improvement in this regard.

While Lindner, as opposition leader, speaks primarily about how politics should be in Berlin, Stamp, with his experience in government, knows what politics is like. Familiar people speak of a kind of continuous reality check in the west of the republic for political concepts of the liberals. Think ahead, develop, implement. That a liberal favorite project like the reduction of bureaucracy under the catchphrase “Entfesselung” is now firmly anchored in the vocabulary of the Union Chancellor candidate Laschet, Stamp should be just as pleased as Lindner. You never know what it’s good for.

Andreas Pinkwart

Another cabinet member from Düsseldorf is Andreas Pinkwart, Economics and Digital Minister. Lindner owes a lot to him, maybe even most of it. It was Pinkwart, at the age of 61 now something like the liberal senior in political Düsseldorf, who once promoted Lindner and made the then only 25-year-old hopeful general secretary. Pinkwart was Minister of Economics and Deputy Prime Minister in the government of Jürgen Rüttgers (CDU) from 2005 to 2010.

The university professor, who always gives an exquisitely cheerful impression, was also the one who suggested to the party leader at the time, Guido Westerwelle, to make Lindner General Secretary of the federal party. As can be said today, that did no harm to Lindner.

Good wires to NRW

It is undisputed that Lindner still has a direct line to the regional association in North Rhine-Westphalia and can fall back on good contacts in the second row. And it helps to add a punch or two when visiting Düsseldorf. When Laschet recently invited the parliamentary groups from the CDU and FDP to a joint barbecue, Lindner spiced up his appearance on the open stage. He reminded Spitz how Laschet had once warned against the FDP in the state election campaign: One vote for the FDP was one vote for Hannelore Kraft (then SPD Prime Minister). If Laschet smiles away the remark in a moody way at such moments, Lindner knows that he hit the nail on the head.

Male dominance

Outside of North Rhine-Westphalia, the circle of confidants is clear – and also strongly male-dominated. All that comes up is the name of Bettina Stark-Watzinger (53), parliamentary manager in the Bundestag. The financial expert, also chair of the finance committee, comes from Hesse. There she leads the FDP regional association. Hermann-Otto Solms (80), a veteran in the parliamentary group, whose judgment Lindner values, also comes from Hesse. But Solms is now leaving the political stage.

Volker Wissing and Wolfgang Kubicki

Volker Wissing (51), FDP General Secretary from Rhineland-Palatinate, recently joined the group of close confidants. Wolfgang Kubicki (71), the liberal from Schleswig-Holstein, has been there for a long time, something like the “enfant terrible” of the FDP. The experience from the times of the extra-parliamentary opposition brought him and Lindner together. Kubicki is headstrong, unpredictable, but known like a sore thumb. In the meantime, some have attested to having become a team player. In FDP circles, this should be sensational news. In any case, in NRW, the party’s internal unit of measurement for political nonsense is closely linked to him. Particularly shrill utterances are measured in Düsseldorf with the “Kubicki scale”, which is open at the top.

What accents does Christian Lindner want to set in the election campaign? Under what conditions can the FDP envisage participation in the government? That ARD summer interview for the report from Berlin with the party leader and the interactive question format Ask yourself! can be seen from 3:30 p.m. in the live stream at tagesschau.de.