In tense times like these, political Ash Wednesday seems even more like a relic from ancient times. Especially since the day shows how quickly boundaries can blur when dealing with one another.
If Markus Söder makes one thing clear from the first second of his Ash Wednesday speech, it is this: that he does not want to mince his words. He is a statesman all year round, “but today there is free travel,” calls the CSU boss in the Passau Dreiländerhalle. “I can say to the friends and experts of political correctness: If you have a concern, then switch off, then switch over. Because the sentence applies: Attention, attention, this is the CSU.”
And then Söder starts, he pulls his punches for more than an hour: against the federal government and for quick new elections, against the Greens and all black-green considerations, against individual traffic light top politicians, but also against Free Voters leader Hubert Aiwanger and most recently with fervor against the AfD. The CSU chairman appears to be significantly more aggressive than in previous years.
It is actually a political Ash Wednesday in times that are serious in terms of foreign policy and tense in terms of domestic policy – as this morning will also show. On the one hand, the ongoing war in Ukraine, the war in the Middle East and the fear of a weakening of NATO if Donald Trump wins the US election. On the other hand, the heated mood in the country, with farmers’ protests against the traffic light government and mass demonstrations against right-wing extremism and the AfD. A meeting of radical right-wingers in Potsdam stirred up the republic. There is great concern that the AfD will gain strength in the European elections and the three eastern state elections this year.
Everyone else distances themselves from the AfD
In fact, this is one, perhaps the only, common dividing line on this Ash Wednesday: all other parties sharply differentiate themselves from the right-wing populists and extremists. The AfD, led by right winger Björn Höcke, wants to hand Germany over to Russia, says Söder. “Höcke is Putin’s number one poodle.” SPD leader Lars Klingbeil warns: “Don’t vote for Nazis.” There is no need for an alternative to the Basic Law, democracy and freedom. “There is no need for an alternative for Germany.”
And Green Party leader Omid Nouripour emphasizes that democracy is big and strong and will have the power to “fend off what the enemies of democracy want to do.” In contrast, the Bavarian AfD parliamentary group leader Katrin Ebner-Steiner is already seeing “the blue sun” rising in the three eastern elections.
Söder scores points with regular table sayings
This Ash Wednesday, too, the mutual attacks predominate, sometimes louder (like Söder), sometimes quieter. The CSU leader compares Federal Environment Minister Steffi Lemke (Greens) with the late SED politician Margot Honecker, and he calls AfD parliamentary group leader Ebner-Steiner “Leni Riefenstahl for the poor.” The Bremen Abitur is at the level of a Lower Bavarian tree nursery, and he warns his own coalition partner in Bavaria of lasting damage and loss of credibility caused by populism. Söder secures a lot of applause, especially with appropriate rejections of gender language, vegetarian food, feminist foreign policy or “mostly non-working” climate glue.
Söder, but also Klingbeil, Nouripour and, in the case of the FDP, Marie-Agnes Strack-Zimmermann, only touch on the major crises and wars in passing. Instead, Klingbeil launches a counterattack on Söder, whom he calls a “political malingerer” and whom he denies any qualifications to be chancellor: Anyone who even loses internally to Armin Laschet and bows out to Free Voters leader Aiwanger doesn’t have what it takes in addition. By his standards, Aiwanger appears to be almost calm and reserved: “We need a strong center and no extremists,” he warns, for example. That’s why we have to offer solutions and “put the extremists down and also put them aside.”
Left long-distance duel
Something more unusual is a kind of left-wing long-distance duel this Wednesday: between Left leader Janine Wissler and new party founder Sahra Wagenknecht. The two also focus partly on the same topics: pensions, health, redistribution. In addition, Wagenknecht criticizes the federal government for spending on armaments and arms aid for Ukraine: The traffic light is not only the stupidest government in Europe, but also “the most dangerous government in Europe.”
Uproar in Biberach
This Ash Wednesday alone shows how fragile social peace is in Germany in February 2024. While Söder in Passau expressly praises the farmers’ protests against the traffic light government’s policies, a few hundred kilometers away in Baden-Württemberg there is a scandal: due to security concerns, the Greens are canceling their Ash Wednesday event in Biberach. Hundreds of people, including farmers, had previously demonstrated loudly in front of the event hall. According to the police, there was also aggressive behavior, several police officers were injured and the officers used pepper spray and batons.
It is not Söder’s loud noise that will be remembered at the end of this political Ash Wednesday 2024. But the forced cancellation of Biberach.
Source: Stern
I have been working in the news industry for over 6 years, first as a reporter and now as an editor. I have covered politics extensively, and my work has appeared in major newspapers and online news outlets around the world. In addition to my writing, I also contribute regularly to 24 Hours World.
