Germany Social Democrats tie in polls with Merkel's CDU
An unusual television duel opened the German electoral campaign this Sunday, although the issues on the table were the same as always: taxes, sustainable pensions, quality education for all, affordable rents, public spending for the most disadvantaged families and the fight against poverty. childish.
It was unusual because it was the first time that the duel was three, although it could well have been four because four are the parties that present candidates for the Chancellery.
Together with the head of the list of the Social Democrats (SPD),
Olaf Scholz
, and that of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU),
Armin Laschet
, the Green candidate,
Annalena Baerbock
, was
invited
, but the leader of the Liberals of the FDP,
Christian Lindner
. The rest of the formations are presented with a two-headed candidacy. It was also unusual because it was also the first time that none of those present on the set came out to defend the title of chancellor. Furthermore, none of the contenders for
Angela Merkel's
succession
has served as leader of the opposition or leads the polls. Four years ago, when Merkel faced the Social Democrat
Martin Schulz
, former president of the European Parliament, the CDU had 32.9% of the support.
This time, no one exceeds 22%.
The German political landscape has changed so much in recent years that, as the
Süddeutsche Zeitung
newspaper pointed out
in an editorial, the only thing that remains in the history of televised electoral duels is the moderator,
Peter Kloeppel
.
The first of the three duels agreed between Laschet, Scholz and Baerbock passed flat, in line with
a campaign displaced from the present day by the crisis in Afghanistan
and the withdrawal of first swords in the defense of the candidates in the political debate.
The loneliness of the candidates is striking. Laschet, prime minister of the state of North Rhine-Westphalia and head of the CDU list to avoid greater evils in his party, has fallen in polls from 30% in July to 22%. And even so, in the CDU the alarms still do not sound. The heavyweights and barons of the party are still waiting for Laschet to invite them to join his team and among them
Friedrich Merz
, the financial expert and eloquent politician that much of the CDU - and the polls - considered the best candidate.
In recent weeks,
Merz has only appeared once on television to defend the CDU
. It was in a debate with the co-chairman of the Greens party,
Robert Habeck
. The format was interesting because, as in the case of the CDU, it was Habeck and not his colleague Baerbock the favorite of the bases and the best positioned in the polls to lead the Greens to the Chancellery.
Habeck gave up the candidacy to Annalena because of her party's commitment to the gender issue, but her political elegance will take a price. Baerbock, who
topped the polls in May with 26%, has fallen to 16%
. If the polls remain in the hairpin drawn by the polling institutes, the Greens will only govern if they are invited. The "most difficult decision" that according to Habeck took the day that it resigned to the candidacy was by a mirage.
Baerbock is too touched to come back in the polls and the party knows it. His public appearances are rare, perhaps to avoid the now inevitable associations with
a plagiarized doctoral thesis and a bloated résumé.
The battles are fought by Habeck and he does so following a strategy that seeks associations that weaken the opponent. He has faced in several debates the leader of the Bavarian Christian Democratic Union (CSU), Markus Söder.
After the defeat of Merz in the elections to the CDU Presidency and therefore to the party's candidacy for the Chancellery, the party had to work hard to impose Laschet as the leader of the conservative bloc against a Söder that was better valued and with more chances of success.
Any appearance of the Bavarian minister-president in the campaign evokes Laschet's weakness.
For the Social Democratic candidate the prospects are not more favorable.
Scholz has been able to take advantage of his work as Minister of Finance
in these two years of crisis due to Covid-19 and take the SPD out of the hole of 15% that it had at the beginning of summer to 22%, thus tying with the CDU.
Scholz, however, is also alone.
He lost by a landslide the primaries for the Presidency of the SPD in favor of the tandem formed by
Saskia Esken
and
Norbert Walter-Borjans
, exponents of the left wing of the party and opponents, unlike Scholz, to reissue, if necessary, the great coalition with the CDU.
The management of the elected board and the influence that the socialist youth have on it, has not only failed to make the SPD go back to the times of
Willy Brandt by
accentuating profile, but the party has had to turn to whoever they did not want as leader to try to prevent a debacle.
The electoral program of the SPD, however, has more confluences with the Die Linke (Left) party than with modern social democracy.
The SPD strategists have nevertheless designed a facelift campaign
. Everything is designed for the candidate. In the electoral posters that have already become part of street furniture, the SPD does not appeal to its traditional electorate. The usual images of workers in overalls and helmets, smiling old men satisfied with their pension, and children happily attending school have been replaced by Scholz's face and a slogan:
"Sholz packt das an"
(Scholz addresses it).
There have been no winners or winners
in the first three-game television match, and neither has the discussion served to establish differences between electoral offers, except at the tax level.
Except for the SPD and the Greens, who favor raising taxes on the rich to finance the debt contracted with the aid made during the hard phase of the Covid crisis, all agree that the future of Germany depends on digitization and policies that stop climate change.
According to the criteria of The Trust Project
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