Friedrich Merz or Weidel: The election campaign has a new duel

Friedrich Merz now leads the debate from the right, obviously with the intention of bringing the lead of his Union to the finish. After the murders of Aschaffenburg, he exacerbates the pitch, explains the fight against illegal migration and violent immigrants as his core concern. The measure is finally full, the top candidate of the Union calls and is full-bodied when Chancellor dismiss the “shard heap of an asylum and immigration policy misguided for ten years”. At latest.

Already next week he wants to drive his leftovers in the Bundestag and apparently accept that the AfD helps him. If you vote, you are “doesn’t care,” says Merz. He is now “all in” on the topic.

With his maneuver, Merz specifically sets a counterpoint to Chancellor Olaf Scholz, whom he is responsible for said “shards”: too little, too late, too tentative. The fact that Scholz reacted quickly, but above all frustrated to the recent events and that Bavaria attested a “execution deficit” in order to initially push responsibility, pays for Merz.

The CDU boss had repeatedly asserted that he did not want to lead a polarizing migration election campaign. Of course, always provided with the transparent addition that if in doubt, the traffic light should not deliver. After Solingen, Magdeburg and Aschaffenburg, Merz is now demonstratively pulling up the topic and plunges on it full of verve. This may hit a nerve with many voters. It is far from saying that they prefer to choose the Union than the AfD.

On the one hand, four weeks before the election, he keeps a debate about how seriously he means with the fire wall to the AfD, that causes his own party to unrest. On the other hand, many of the suggestions that Merz now feeds are difficult to implement. Merz stirs up expectations that he can hardly meet. If he actually becomes a chancellor, his dashing promises could still fall on his feet and become a great source of annoyance. Compromises are “no longer possible on these topics,” says Merz. Potential coalition partners should see it differently.

Merz feels the pressure of the AfD. He sends the signal that the actual duel is not held between the CDU/CSU and SPD in this election, but between the CDU/CSU and the extreme right. This form of intensification worked in the state elections in Thuringia and Brandenburg – the top candidates of CDU (in Thuringia) and SPD (Brandenburg) emerged as the winner from the respective “fate elections” – however, evaluates the right -wing populists and their supposed voter potential on. Also the top of wanting to go into the TV duel with AfD boss Alice Weidel, instead of being narcotic, helps the right-wing populist to be unexpectedly relevant.

The advantage, from Merz ‘point of view: Chancellor Olaf Scholz is thus trimmed in public perception as an insignificant player in the election campaign. Especially since the asylum and migration policy is a defensive topic for the Social Democrats, where there is not much to win. For Scholz, it should be impossible to get into the forehand on this topic. Even if he tried to top Merz ‘tough course: there would be no lot of room for improvement.

“You can’t overlook a stabbage,” said former CSU general secretary Markus Blume in retrospect to the failed strategy of the Christian Socialist, the AfD digging the water with its sound. Merz ‘advance is therefore a risk, in many ways. The Chancellor’s party already warns of black and blue, the CDU boss has delivered its new ammunition for the election campaign. On February 23, the strategy will be shown.