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Nancy Faeser wants to become Prime Minister of Hesse. According to surveys, your chances are not very good. This may also be due to her job as Federal Minister of the Interior. Did the SPD politician miscalculate?
Nancy Faeser is currently fighting on many fronts. Last week the Interior Minister banned a neo-Nazi group “Hammerskins”. Today there is a raid against other right-wing extremists from the “Artgemeinschaft” association. She also has another appointment in the Bundestag’s Interior Committee, which is about asylum and migration policy.
She was only on the Interior Committee last week. It was about the controversial dismissal of former BSI President Arne Schönbohm, which she pushed through as minister. The SPD politician was questioned by MPs in a closed session for three hours. Afterwards she was again accused by the opposition that her answers were not satisfactory. Especially since the minister had only responded to the committee’s third invitation, which earned her the accusation of wanting to avoid critical questions.
Torn between federal and state
These days, Faeser seems like a driven woman, worn out by her self-imposed dual role. In addition to her job as Federal Minister of the Interior, Faeser is also campaigning on her own behalf. She would like to become Prime Minister of Hesse. There are still a week and a half until the state elections. Things aren’t looking particularly good for her and her SPD.
One problem: The candidate for prime minister cannot really attack in Hesse because she has to defend herself in the capital. A challenger torn between federal and state governments. An exhausting double burden, which is repeatedly fueled by the CDU in particular with new questions and accusations. In the current migration debate, Faeser, as Interior Minister, is also under pressure to ensure more control.
Ministerial job as a stepping stone
The SPD plan for recapturing the Wiesbaden State Chancellery looked completely different. On St. Nicholas Day 2021, Nancy Faeser was introduced by Chancellor Olaf Scholz as the future first Federal Minister of the Interior. A surprise coup: Hardly anyone in Berlin had expected the then 51-year-old Hessian opposition leader. As a minister, the trained lawyer should raise her profile for a possible candidacy in Hesse. After all, the Federal Ministry of the Interior is a key department and, with around 80,000 employees, including the Federal Police, one of the largest ministries in Germany. Whoever manages this properly will also be well equipped for the Wiesbaden State Chancellery, according to the plan. After 24 years in the opposition, Faeser was supposed to lead the Hesse SPD back into government.
But even after almost two years as minister, the official bonus is hardly reflected in the surveys. The SPD politician has become better known, but not more popular. In the HessenTrend by Infratest dimap on behalf of MR In the areas of sympathy, credibility, competence and leadership, Faeser is behind the other two candidates, incumbent Boris Rhein (CDU) and Economics and Transport Minister Tarek Al-Wazir (Greens). Even in a hypothetical direct election as Prime Minister, the SPD candidate would only end up in third place.
No winning topics
This is also due to the issues that Faeser deals with every day as Interior Minister and with which she primarily appears in the media: refugee crisis, clan crime, overwhelmed municipalities. None of these are winning topics, but rather blocks in the leg that keep Faeser in crisis mode. In addition, there is the bad image of the traffic light coalition in Berlin, which Faeser himself described as “no tailwind”.
At the same time, the minister finds it difficult to penetrate state policy issues, as almost half of Hessian voters rate federal and not state issues as important for their voting decision on October 8th.
From the outside, you can hardly tell that the social democrat is under the pressure she is under. Compared to her time in the Wiesbaden state parliament, she now seems more experienced, confident and confident. At press conferences, she simply parries questions on topics as diverse as the protection of the EU’s external borders or the Hessian quota of family doctors.
In direct conversation, Faeser can be extremely warm; she likes to laugh a lot. She emphasized last February that returning to Hesse as Prime Minister was a matter close to her heart.
fight against Right-wing extremism
But fiber can also be tough. For twelve years she was the domestic policy spokesperson for the SPD parliamentary group in the Hessian state parliament, had countless debates with CDU Interior Minister Peter Beuth and made a name for herself in the Hessian NSU investigative committee.
She took her fight against right-wing extremism with her to her office in Berlin, most recently banning the neo-Nazi group Hammerskins. When it comes to refugee policy, she insists on a new European distribution system. This is one of the reasons why observers tend to place her in the conservative camp of the law-and-order department within the SPD. In the Hessian election campaign, Faeser advocates for free education “from kindergarten to master”, for more teachers and for affordable housing.
What will happen to Faeser after the election?
If she loses the fight for the Wiesbaden State Chancellery, the politician from Schwalbach am Taunus does not want to become opposition leader in the state parliament again. Faeser has already made that clear. She also rules out the post of deputy prime minister in a possible coalition with the CDU.
At a press conference in the Rheingau she was recently asked which role was more important in the election campaign: Federal Minister of the Interior or SPD top candidate? Faeser’s answer: The office always has priority; after all, she took on great responsibility in Berlin.
However, this position in Berlin does not prove to be an advantage for her – as initially hoped. On the contrary. If you look at the current polls, it doesn’t look as if Faeser will soon become Prime Minister in Hesse. And a completely different question is currently being asked in Berlin: Will Faeser be able to hold on as Federal Minister of the Interior if the SPD in Hesse does not achieve at least a respectable result?
The top candidate herself said this in an interview with journalists a few days ago: “I assume that I would keep my ministerial post, but of course the Federal Chancellor will decide that.”