🇩🇪 German elections (federal & EU level)

[Middle-aged Europe]

What about the Migration woman’s skills about Health ?

That’s like asking a teacher to become your pilot to Mallorca ...

She was a state secretary at the Health ministry from 2009 to 2018, and before that the CDU/CSU parliamentary group's spokesperson on health policy. Widmann-Kauz is probably more qualified to run the Health ministry than the incumbent Jens Spahn. Not that it matters since she will remain on her post as Commissioner for Migration in the Chancellery now.

[Middle-aged Europe]

Scuttlebutt is that they offered Spahn the job at defense first, but he turned them down. So AKK had to step in. Spahn probably figured that this would be a bad career move, given the state Von der Leyen leaves this ministry behind. I suppose that means AKK won't succeed Merkel as Chancellor after all.    Still sort of puzzling that she volunteered for the sh**t detail.

[Middle-aged Europe]

Scholz will probably win and it will be the final nail in the coffin.

[Middle-aged Europe]

Scholz will probably win and it will be the final nail in the coffin.

You mean he has the Biden factor?

Personally, I think they should try to give the Simone Lange/Alexander Ahrens ticket a shot, since they seem like the cleanest slate possible without resorting to obscure Mike Gravel-like characters. I mean, what they have got to lose?

And does anyone seriously believe anything would substantially change for the better with Scholz or Schwan/Stegner at the helm? They'd been gone within the next 12 months too. The reason why Scholz hesitated so long is because it's a career-killing move.

[Middle-aged Europe]

The acting SPD triumvirate becomes a duumvirate consisting of Malu Dreyer and Thorsten Schäfer-Gümbel, since Manuela Schwesig steps down after a breast cancer diagnosis.

[Middle-aged Europe]

In a bit of a blow to Olaf Scholz, former SPD chair/Vice-chancellor Sigmar Gabriel endorses Köpping/Pistorius:

https://m.tagesspiegel.de/politik/rennen-um-den-spd-vorsitz-gabriel-favorisiert-duo-pistorius-koepping/25002692.html

[Middle-aged Europe]

Today, the Greens are electing their parliamentary party leader-duo.
The current faction leaders Anton Hofreiter and Katrin Göring-Eckardt since 2013, who deemed their renewed candidacies to be a sure-fire success, unexpectedly met with resistance; Cem Özdemir, former party chairman from 2008 to 2018, and some random woman named Kirsten Kappert-Gonther, run against Toni and Frau Göring. His candidacy is so remarkable as he is reported to seek the chancellorship; but in order to achieve the nomination, he'll have to compete against the Messiah Robert Habeck in a primary.

That bolded part would be news to me. Actually, Özdemir was seen as a likely candidate to succeed Winfried Kretschmann as minister-president in Baden-Württemberg. Kretschmann's (slightly surprising) decision to run for a third term - which perhaps was known to Özdemir for some time before Kretschmann announced it publicly - may have been what caused Özdemir's recent candidacy for the parliamentary leadership in the first place IMO.

Needless to say, Özdemir's career planning didn't go that well these past two years:

- It started with his announcement in the summer of the 2017 election campaign not to seek another term as party chairman. In retrospect a bad decision from his point of view, but a) he probably overestimated his chances to become a government minister (or leader of the Green parliamentary group if that doesn't work out) after the election and b) he was in fact already the longest-serving chairman in Green party history at that point, so he may have started to see the chairmanship as a sign for a stalled political career.

- As we all know, the Jamaica coalition talks eventually failed, so no government post for him. He did in fact consider to run for the leadership of the parliamentary group back then, but ultimately decided against it because a firm majority of the group was behind Göring-Eckardt/Hofreiter. Ultimately, he ended up as chairman of the Bundestag's committee for transportation. He was craving to get back to the top ever since.

But as Hades pointed out, a victory for him today would almost certainly mean a Habeck-Özdemir primary rematch in 2020/21 (in 2017, Özdemir defeated Habeck by a margin of 75 votes, or in other words 0.2%).

[Middle-aged Europe]

Özdemir and Kappert-Gonther both lost.

[Middle-aged Europe]

What I find noteworthy about Wagenknecht is that even her anti-immigration stance can probably be traced back to her more authoritarian, old school state-socialist leanings.

More than anyone else in the Left she always seemed to be stuck in the 1980s politically and whenever she clashed with the rest of her party it was due to the fact that she clung to the more orthodox ideological views the rest of the PDS/Left tried to overcome. In the 1990s and 2000s this mostly applied to her uncritical, more positive appraisal of the perished GDR system. Starting with the 2010s this changed to her restrictive positioning on immigration.

In that context, it's noteworthy that communist East Germany had pretty restrictive immigration policies too. Not only was almost nobody allowed to leave the country (not on a permanent basis anyway), the regime also refused to let many people from abroad enter and stay. There was some immigration from Vietnam (minor in numbers compared to West Germany), but the East German government was very careful not to integrate them too much with the rest of the population and society. The idea was to segregate them and eventually return them to their home country (which never actually happened). This was IMO also one of several factors that also contributed to the popularity of right-wing views and the eventual rise of the AfD post-1990.  East Germany was an example of a "ethnically homogenous", communist society.

Personally, I never really met a lot Left Party supporters/members who were big fans of Wagenknecht's immigration stances. But maybe this plays better in Saxony than it does in Berlin. I used to know a Left member who works at the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation who always resorted to a "but Boris Palmer is even worse!" defense when the topic came up in discussions with me.

In my opinion, it would also certainly be a matter of debate whether Wagenknecht's stance was in fact a pretty dumb one from a purely strategic point of view. On one hand, it alienated supporters of more liberal immigration policies, while on the other hand it's unclear whether it motivated people to vote for the Left Party in larger numbers since it was obvious that Wagenknecht's views were only a minority position within the party and caused a lot of discord there. I mean, if we come back to Boris Palmer for a minute: I doubt that anyone votes Green because of him, but I met a number of people who refuse to vote Green because of Palmer. The thumb rule is: Whichever position a political party holds, you better make sure that it is a uncontroversial one within that party, because people usually don't vote for parties who don't even seem to agree on what they want.

[Middle-aged Europe]

Could you please elaborate on Boris Palmer? I'd have thought someone with restrictive views on immigration wouldn't go far in the German Greens.

Over the past few years, Palmer has acquired himself quite a reputation for being the Green who regularly comes out with anti-immigration statements. Personally, I find some of these statements pretty inane. For instance, he came under fire once for posting on his Facebook site that a speeding, dark-skinned guy on a bike had almost run him over earlier that day and that a well-integrated person wouldn't have done that. Similar somewhat attention-whoring anecdotes on how foreigners have done bad things have probably tarnished his reputation more than anything else. His standing would perhaps be a bit better had he just stuck to actual immigration policies like Winfried Kretschmann did. Then again, I wouldn't chracterize Kretschmann as a narcissist. In that sense, Palmer is indeed worse than Sarah Wagenknecht from the Left.

Politically, Boris Palmer is the mayor of the 90,000-inhabitant-strong town of Tübingen in Baden-Württemberg, first elected in 2006, re-elected for another eight-year term in 2014. The rest of the Green party usually tries to ignore him. Given his history of controversial remarks I find it unlikely he won't ever become anything else than mayor. At least in the party he's currently in.

[Middle-aged Europe]

In connection with the current Thuringian government formation debate (should the CDU talk with the Left and/or the AfD?), conservative CDU general-secretary Paul Ziemiak went full Antifa and has now published a guest editorial for the SPIEGEL magazine:

https://www.spiegel.de/politik/deutschland/paul-ziemiak-cdu-generalsekretaer-afd-ist-anti-deutschland-partei-gastbeitrag-a-1295061.html

Notable statements he makes in that article:

- Björn Höcke is "a Nazi".

- The AfD is "on its way to become a NPD 2.0", "moving to where the NPD once had its place", and "openly and visibly buildung bridges to right-wing extremism". "Blue turns into brown".

- Any kind of cooperation with the AfD "would be a betrayal of Christian-democratic values", and
anyone who's considering to cooperate with that party "should know that the AfD is questioning basic principles of our constitution".

- Furthermore, the AfD is "adcovating a Volksgemeinschaft based on ethnic homogeneity, that's how it started in 1933" in addition to being "at its core an anti-Germany party".


They're really packing out the big guns in their attempt to keep the genie in the bottle.

[Middle-aged Europe]

Who tf are of 12% of West Germans and 8% of East Germans who say that "free speech" was better under the East German Regime?

I'm even more amazed that there are people who think that "travel possibilities" in the GDR were better. Hard to believe.

They're just discontent with their current lifes and due to a myopic view of history they indiscrimintely believe that everything must have been better in the past. But yeah, not much reflection going on here.

[Middle-aged Europe]

Today, Angela Merkel has become the second-longest serving post-WWII Chancellor of Germany, surpassing Konrad Adenauer, but still trailing Helmut Kohl. If we take all German Chancellors in history into count, Merkel now ranks third, after Bismarck and Kohl.

To become the longest serving post-1949 Chancellor she would need to remain in office until December 17, 2021 - which I guess is at least theoretically possible even if she doesn't run in the 2021 election again, provided the next government formation process will be similarly time-consuming than the last two (back in 2013, Merkel's third term did indeed start with her election by the Bundestag on December 17).

[Middle-aged Europe]

This got less attention than it probably should have, for obvious reasons, and perhaps that actually was the intention, but Jörg Meuthen (co-leader) has proposed that the ultranationalist wing of the AFD around Höcke and the "conservative" wing split off into a separate parties and reasoned it like this:

Everyone knows that the [höcke-] wing and its key exponents cost us massively votes in the bourgeois electorate, and I also think that the neoliberal views of the bourgeois-conservative part of the AfD stop us from reaching even better results [among the working-class].

Which he is probably right about in my opinion. But it did not go down well at all within the AFD at all. Support from Georg Pazderski (Fraction leader in Berlin), but otherwise very negative. Unlikely to go anywhere, but does show that the AFD leadership seem to realise that they have hit a ceiling of sorts.

Polling in Germany has gone like everywhere in Europe at the moment. Government parties (especially CDU) up big time, Opposition down (but the AFD especially).

If it weren't for the Coronavirus right now, Meuthen could lose his job over this. Höcke got rid of Lucke and Petry, he can easily also get rid of Meuthen.

[Middle-aged Europe]

Höcke has called Meuthen's proposition "foolish". Alexander Gauland also wasn't amused.

Yup, Meuthen is toast.

[Middle-aged Europe]

Why hasn't Höcke officially become AfD leader yet?

For essentially the same reason Meuthen has proposed to part ways with him and his wing in the first place:  Making Höcke the federal chairman - therefore fully embracing him and his ideology - could possibly cut the AfD's vote share into half.

With the current status quo one could still pretend that Höcke merely represents one among several factions within the party and that there are still other, more moderate factions (like Meuthen's for instance) which you want to support with your vote for the AfD.

Or is he essencially the AfD's Chancellor candidate for 2021 in all but name?

No. More like a gray eminence.

[Middle-aged Europe]

After Meuthen got his balls clipped by Höcke & Co., he walked back on his proposition to split the party and get rid of the extremists, calling it a "mistake" now.

[Middle-aged Europe]

Wolfgang Schäube, incumbent President of the Bundestag, former finance/interior/chancellery minister in various Helmut Kohl & Angela Merkel cabinets and ex-federal chairman of the CDU, has announced that he's planning to run for his 14th term as member of the Bundestag in 2021. For 48 out of 71 years the post-WWII German Bundestag existed he has been a member of it.

[Middle-aged Europe]

Yesterday, Esken and Walter-Borjans said they are striving for a "progressive alliance" in the coming years, indicating potential cooperation with Die Linke

Even more so, Esken had also said on Sunday that she's willing to accept a Chancellor from the Greens if it means that a coalition between them, her own party, and the Left comes into existence. With today's events Olaf Scholz seems to be the SPD's candidate for Chancellor in case the Greens happen to fail at the polls or something. Talk about sending mixed messages.

[Middle-aged Europe]

The next CDU congress, supposed to vote on a new chairperson and provided it doesn't come down to Markus Söder also possibly a Chancellor-candidate for the 2021 election, hangs in the balance again.

The congress was originally scheduled for April and then postponed to December because of COVID. It's clear by now that COVID won't be gone by December and possibly the situation might have even worsened by then. According to outgoing CDU chair Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer CDU party statutes mandate an in-person congress and therefore don't allow a virtual congress (and in order to change party statutes to allow for virtual congresses you'd first need to hold an in-person congress to vote on it too ). The two options on the table are a scaled down in-person congress which limits itself to conducting only the absolutely necessary functions or postponing the congress altogether again. The CDU is planning to make a final (?) decision on that in mid-September.

[Middle-aged Europe]

^^ When you happen to have Esken & Walter-Borjans - who originally campaigned on leaving the coalition but ultimately walked back on it - as party chairs on one hand and Olaf Scholz on the other hand you continue to be unsure what the SPD even stands for.

[Middle-aged Europe]

It seems like the CDU party convention in December which was supposed to elect a new CDU leader will probably be postponed... again. Originally, this convention had been scheduled for April this year but was then pushed back to December due to the pandemic. Now it seems like it will happen a year later or something. Not that still incumbent CDU chair AKK has been much of a presence in the media or public consciousness the last couple of months - which either may have been intentional on her part due to her lame duck status or unintentional because she just kind of faded away during the pandemic. In most people's minds Angela Merkel probably has been the de facto CDU leader again since March.

Speaking of the pandemic, since Jens Spahn is the incumbent health minister and unlike Armin Laschet hadn't to face much criticism over its handling, there are occassionally voices within the CDU who are urging him to reconsider his decision not to run for CDU leader himself. So far Spahn has always turned these suggestions down and/or not commented on them.

[Middle-aged Europe]

The CDU convention has been officially postponed. This led to Friedrich Merz attacking the CDU leadership now, accusing them of postponing the convention not because of the pandemic, but to prevent him of becoming the new party leader. (I doubt that public meltdowns like this are gonna help his chances... people don't want a German Trump. )

[Middle-aged Europe]

After a couple of CDU officials had more or less accused Friedrich Merz.of being a spreader of conspiracy theories (due to Merz' accusation that the CDU convention wasn't postponed because of COVID but to prevent him from becoming party leader) the convention is now set for a new date in mid-January... for now anyway. Media has commented on recent events as the moment when the CDU leadership race turned "ugly".

[Middle-aged Europe]

After a couple of CDU officials had more or less accused Friedrich Merz.of being a spreader of conspiracy theories (due to Merz' accusation that the CDU convention wasn't postponed because of COVID but to prevent him from becoming party leader) the convention is now set for a new date in mid-January... for now anyway. Media has commented on recent events as the moment when the CDU leadership race turned "ugly".

What's your opinion on the issue?

Friedrich Merz has a big ego and a big mouth and sometimes he speaks before he thinks. I (and probably also a lot of people in the CDU as well) dread him becoming CDU chairman let alone Chancellor, because then everything would become about him and not the public good or something. Unfortunately, Merz has taken a page from the textbook of Trump and other populists by claiming that his own ego trips are ultimatly about fighting the corrupt elites and the establishment (says the guy who has been a senior executive at BlackRock for the past couple of years).