Anne Will had chosen the politics of the center as the fixed point that was to be in her program. The talk show entitled “Politics in Crisis Mode – Who Still Holds the Country Together?” Then turned out to be another Thuringian talk.
The guests were the Bavarian Prime Minister Markus Söder (CSU), the SPD leader Saskia Esken, Greens leader Annalena Baerbock, FDP veteran Gerhart Baum and the “Zeit” editor-in-chief Giovanni di Lorenzo. Söder warmed up as Chancellor candidate, Baum was outraged by the FDP in Berlin and Thuringia. However, the question of the program fell into the background.
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“Politics in crisis mode – who still holds the country together?” Was the actual topic of “Anne Will”, but was only discussed marginally
Source: NDR / Wolfgang Borrs
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Analysis of the evening
Although the situation in Thuringia has gone wrong, Baerbock does not want to speak of a “system crisis”. “We must not begin to take over the wording that the system is in a crisis,” said the Green Party chair. Confidence in politics and the parties had deteriorated, but hope was given to it by civil society, the pressure of which had prompted the FDP and CDU to withdraw. “The housewife, the plumber – everyone said that was not possible.”
Quote of the evening
The Union and thus all of Thuringia wriggles with the question of how this party in the middle should keep its edges. Baerbock, Esken and Baum asked the CDU to give up the equidistance to the AfD and the Left Party. Markus Söder explained why the Union does not want to work with the successor party to the SED until further notice: because of the anti-constitutional hostility of some party groups, the rejection of the term unjust state for the GDR and the attitude towards the EU, the USA and the Bundeswehr.
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So far the well-known arguments repeated themselves. Even Soder’s demand that a candidate for prime minister of the SPD or the Greens could free the CDU from its dilemma and Thuringia from the rigidity has been old hat since the election determined the talk shows.
Fundamental questions about tensions and divisions in and identification with society were therefore neglected – also with Anne Will. Giovanni di Lorenzo then ventured a pictorial comparison. “We cannot quarantine 25 percent of the voters in the new federal states like after a corona disease on a cruise ship,” said the journalist. However, he could not see any visible approach to how to contain the AfD in any of the guests.
Total loss of the evening
The show was still under the impression of the announced withdrawal of the CDU chairwoman Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer. But precisely because the CDU may now threaten the fate of the SPD, the Social Democrats are particularly in demand for a discussion about politics in the middle. Saskia Esken’s contributions must, however, be booked as a total loss.
Directional struggles, membership participation and membership dwindling, crumbling voters and an international trend that speaks against popular parties – many things could have been viewed from a social democratic perspective. The SPD chairman, however, was only able to elicit common places. Example: The CDU members decide on the CDU chairmanship. In that case, this was even incorrect: no membership decision is planned for the CDU; A party congress is expected to decide on the chairmanship.
Guest of the evening
Markus Söder will probably have been particularly pleased about his invitation. He quickly and strongly condemned the election of the FDP politician Thomas Kemmerich with votes from the AfD as prime minister in Thuringia. “If you want to become a candidate for chancellor, you have to make it clear that there can be no cooperation with the AfD at all,” said Söder. So it was a good thing that exactly one candidate was on the show.
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Söder flashed to the right in the 2018 election campaign in Bavaria and distinguished himself from the AfD when he realized that voters always prefer the original. Anne Will also reminded him that he initially fished on the right side with “asylum tourism” and other terms.
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With “Anne Will” Markus Söder made concrete recommendations to the sister party CDU
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Söder clarified: “It doesn’t work to copy the concepts and accept the language.” He recommends the CDU to differentiate itself from the AfD – and to promote rural, structurally weak areas. New industries, universities and authorities should be targeted where the tendency to annoy Berlin, to choose the AfD, is particularly pronounced. In his answer to the question of the next CDU leader, Söder then made it clear that the next party leader did not necessarily have to become a candidate for chancellor. Of course, the candidates would also have to say “whether they are willing to chair the party, even if they are not chancellors. Perhaps that already clears the candidate field ”.
Söder did not explain why this should work better this time than under Kramp-Karrenbauer. But he indicated that he might consider Merz less suitable: “I think that a break with the Chancellor is not the right thing to do.” He praised Angela Merkel for her reputation – internationally and with voters. In her own election campaign in 2018, however, Söder largely avoided appearances by the Chancellor.
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A no to the AfD, recipes for success from Bavaria and praise for the Chancellor – it is clear: With this appearance, Söder was working on the chance that a Bavarian might be elected Chancellor of the Federal Republic in 2021.
Most pressing warning of the evening
The former Federal Minister of the Interior, Gerhart Baum, also commented early and devastating on the Kemmerich election. He also scratched the FDP chairman Christian Lindner. Therefore, not every active liberal liked his invitation.
Baum is likely to continue the FDP, because he has now recommended the party to elect Bodo Ramelow as prime minister. “There is no other way in Thuringia now, it must be over that the AfD interferes again,” said Baum at Will. And then the 87-year-old surprises with a statement: “In my lifetime, right-wing extremism has never been as strong and influential as it is now.”
The Nazi era excluded Baum from demand. But old Nazis in the early Federal Republic, discussions about a final line in German history and the neo-Nazi violence of the 1980s and 1990s also lag behind the AfD. “Please don’t take it too lightly,” Baum concluded. “My long life brings me a serious warning.”
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