parties
Politicians use Ash Wednesday to attack each other
Markus Söder at the CSU’s political Ash Wednesday. photo
© Peter Kneffel/dpa
It’s a political Ash Wednesday in tense times. Nevertheless, there are a lot of pithy words and a lot of bravado. An event in Baden-Württemberg is canceled due to safety concerns.
Top politicians from almost all German parties have the political Ash Wednesday is used for pithy words and attacks on political opponents. At the CSU rally in Passau, CSU leader Markus Söder attacked the traffic light government, especially the Greens, and again called for new federal elections. SPD leader Lars Klingbeil, among others, attacked Söder head-on. The speakers sharply differentiated themselves from the AfD at virtually all rallies.
In Biberach, Baden-Württemberg, the Greens canceled their event with Federal Agriculture Minister Cem Özdemir at short notice due to massive protests from farmers.
Söder: “The traffic lights have to go”
“To the traffic light: You had your chance. It’s over. Clear the way. New elections are needed. The traffic light has to go,” Söder called out to the CSU supporters in Passau. Unlike CDU leader Friedrich Merz, who recently did not want to categorically rule out cooperation with the Greens, Söder clearly rejected a government alliance with the Greens in the federal government. “We as the CSU don’t want any Greens in the next federal government, no black-green.” The Greens are not fit to govern.
Klingbeil countered in Vilshofen: “I think you deserve better than this political simulator at the top of the country.” But Söder is also “too weak to become Chancellor in this country.” Anyone who even loses internally to Armin Laschet and bows out to Free Voters leader Hubert Aiwanger doesn’t have what it takes to be chancellor.
At the Green Party’s Ash Wednesday in Landshut, Green Party leader Omid Nouripour praised the mass rallies in which hundreds of thousands have been taking to the streets against right-wing extremism for weeks. That is “incredibly strong”. “We must trust this democracy because it is big and strong and because it has the power to repel what the enemies of democracy want to do.”
Greens cancel event in Biberach
Before the Greens event in Biberach in Baden-Württemberg, there were massive protests and blockades, including by farmers, where the police also used pepper spray. The Greens canceled the event at short notice – the chairman of the Biberach district association, Michael Gross, cited aggressive moods at demonstrations in the area as the reason. According to its own information, the state farmers’ association did not call for the protests or support them in advance.
The Bavarian AfD parliamentary group leader Katrin Ebner-Steiner said in Osterhofen, Lower Bavaria, with a view to the upcoming state elections in three eastern German states this year: “The blue sun rises in the east in autumn.” And: The traffic light government with the “permanent grin” Olaf Scholz must go. And then apply: right before left.
Free Voters leader Aiwanger demanded a change from the traffic light government, saying it was doing “terribly wrong politics”. Germany needs a strong center, but people are being driven to the left and right. “If people are fed with woke topics every day, you shouldn’t be surprised if they escalate at some point.”
Former left-wing politician Sahra Wagenknecht also appeared in Lower Bavaria for the first time in her new role as head of a new electoral alliance. The FDP sent top European candidate Marie-Agnes Strack-Zimmermann into the race. Wagenknecht criticized the federal government for spending on armaments and arms aid for Ukraine. She has already described the traffic light coalition as the stupidest government in Europe. But she had to add: “We also have the most dangerous government in Europe, and that too is something that cannot continue like this.”