Almost two weeks before the federal elections on September 26th, the verbal argument in Germany is getting noticeably harder – at least between the CDU / CSU and the SPD, who are still coalition partners in Berlin. At the weekend, a sentence from the Union’s candidate for chancellor, Armin Laschet, triggered huge anger among the Social Democrats. In his speech at the CSU party conference in Nuremberg, Laschet said: “In all the decisions made in post-war history, social democrats have always been on the wrong side.”
Under this year’s top candidate, the Union had “lost decency and dignity. It belongs in the opposition,” said SPD General Secretary Lars Klingbeil angrily. And even referred to Laschet in the postscript as “Rhineland Trump”.
Union representatives countered immediately and accused the Social Democrats of tearing Armin Laschet’s sentence out of context. Accordingly, his quote from Franz Josef Strau continued after a short pause: “In economic and financial policy.”
Winner not automatically Chancellor
Regardless of the poor poll results, the Union candidate for Chancellor believes that a chancellorship is also possible if the SPD wins the election. “Not the one who is in first place automatically becomes Federal Chancellor,” said the CDU leader on Deutschlandfunk, referring to the Social Democrats who are currently leading in polls. In the election, parties would be elected, not candidates, and the parties would have to form a coalition. “Nevertheless, I intend to be in first place and become Federal Chancellor.”
The background to this is the question of the behavior of the FDP after the federal election. FDP leader Christian Lindner had pointed out in the Bundestag that the Liberals had formed a coalition in 1976 with the SPD, which was in second place, and not with the election winner CDU.
