The FDP had proclaimed the “hot phase of the election campaign” for this warm summer Wednesday evening in Munich. For this she had parked a truck with a large stage in front of the Feldherrnhalle on Odeonsplatz, with a large video wall on top. In front of it, selected guests sat on beer benches in the cordoned off area, and quite a few FDP sympathizers stood further back. Many young faces were to be seen when the Liberal party’s top firecracker climbed the stage, party leader and Federal Minister of Finance Christian Lindner.
At the beginning of his speech, he was very happy to be going into the election campaign in Bavaria for the state elections on October 8th together with the top Bavarian candidate Martin Hagen. The election campaign is “the high mass” of democracy, said Lindner. However, he had to deal with the lowlands of the protest right away. Environmentalists from the Extinction Rebellion group attacked his policies, holding up FDP-style posters that read “We don’t give a fuck about the climate” and “For fat profits.” A demonstrator, sitting on the shoulders of a comrade-in-arms, threw copied banknotes around.
With posters in the FDP look, climate protectionists protested against the policies of the FDP chairman and finance minister.
(Photo: Robert Haas)
Lindner located the opponents in the group “The Last Generation” and accused them of waste. “Anyone who yells loudly uses a lot of CO₂,” exclaimed Lindner. With their form of radical protest, they would only harm climate protection. The FDP party leader then devoted himself to his core issues, campaigning for a strict financial policy, peace and security and regulated immigration from abroad. But that didn’t go smoothly either. As the speaking time increased, Lindner tilted his voice upwards, at times he sounded like a teenager whose voice was breaking. The finance minister took it with humor. There is only a second vote in elections, he said. And then gave the motto for the evening, but possibly also for the election campaign: “We’ll do it.”