Hesse election: candidacy with a safety net? | tagesschau.de

Hesse’s SPD wants to nominate the interior minister as the top candidate. For Faeser this is almost no risk, there will hardly be a “Röttgen scenario”. But a victory would also be a problem for the chancellor.

Nancy Faeser’s candidacy for the job of prime minister in Hesse is a story that is often discussed from the end in political Berlin. “What happens if you lose?” is likely to be a frequently asked question for the interior minister in the coming days. And Faeser will probably always reply that she is making a clear offer and is applying to the people of Hesse for the office of prime minister. She does not see herself as the leader of the opposition.

candidacy at risk

So it is clear: either Faeser will emerge victorious from the state elections or she will stay in Berlin and remain Minister of the Interior. “I have the Chancellor’s full backing for this,” she said on Thursday evening.

But this candidacy remains a risk. The example of Norbert Röttgen is mentioned again and again. He wanted to become Prime Minister of North Rhine-Westphalia from the position of Federal Environment Minister. The plan went wrong. Röttgen lost and was then dismissed by the Chancellor, also under public pressure.

Faeser and Röttgen not comparable

But the cases are not entirely comparable. At the time, Röttgen was said to have the ambitious goal that the job in the state chancellery in Düsseldorf was only an intermediate step on the way to the chancellery. However, Röttgen had neither his party nor the then party leader and Chancellor Angela Merkel behind him for this idea. And without support from your own ranks, it’s difficult to remain in office in the face of criticism.

With Faeser it is different. The party and Chancellor stand behind the decision. As of now, it will stay that way. This is also due to the fact that the Chancellor probably has little interest in having to fill an important portfolio again after Christine Lambrecht’s resignation as Defense Minister. Especially if he didn’t even win a new prime minister for it.

In the event of an election victory, the chancellor would have a problem. Faeser also benefits from the fact that the female candidates for the office of Federal Minister of the Interior in the SPD have to be looked for with a magnifying glass.

Scholz already had a problem with Lambrecht

It is clear that after Scholz gave up parity for the change in the Ministry of Defense, a possible successor should definitely be a woman. In addition, it is a tradition in the ministry that the boss is a qualified lawyer. Only Horst Seehofer once failed to meet this criterion. For example, the party leader Saskia Esken would fail as a candidate. Whether she would really want the job is questionable anyway.

The same applies to them as to Lars Klingbeil as a possible defense minister. The SPD is of the opinion that the two party leaders should not submit to cabinet discipline under a chancellor. We are therefore looking for a distinguished lawyer with experience in managing a large authority.

It is unlikely that Scholz has already spoken to candidates. When it came to Lambrecht’s successor, Boris Pistorius was only asked at the very end. The chancellor’s office is too concerned that otherwise names would be publicly discussed too early. Especially since it is not yet clear whether a successor is needed at all.

“Federal Ministry of the Interior is not a part-time job”

Nevertheless, the Faeser personality is already depressing the mood in the traffic light coalition. The Greens in particular are asking whether Faeser can handle the election campaign and office at the same time. The Green MP Konstantin von Notz tweeted: “The management of the Federal Ministry of the Interior is not a part-time job. Especially not in these times”.

In the SPD, of course, you see things differently. Chancellor Scholz said today that Faeser is a great woman who grew up in Hesse and that every Hessian would wish for “I’d like to have one like that”. And support also comes from the FDP. Federal Minister of Justice Buschmann writes in a tweet. “My colleague Nancy Faeser is running for an election. Without people standing for election, there is no choice and no democracy.” Therefore, one should not criticize the candidature. Anyone who is concerned that something else will be left behind should name it specifically and criticize the matter.

Ultimately, that will be what matters for Faeser. She must campaign without risking being accused of lack of leadership. For this it is also necessary to strictly separate ministerial appointments from election campaign appointments and not to use official resources. To put it bluntly, the willingness to fly is taboo when Faeser goes to Hesse in the future.