Election campaign in “final round” in TV criticism: What was it hell?

Sometimes ideas sound great. All top candidates, all, of all parties, in a program. Then the voter can venture an all -round view. Thursday evening all major parties in ARD and ZDF were in one, the last round of debate on the Bundestag election.

Alice Weidel (AfD), Alexander Dobrindt (CSU), Carsten Linnemann (CDU), Christian Lindner (FDP), Matthias Miersch (SPD), Annalena Baerbock (Greens), Jan van Aken (left) and Sahra Wagenknecht (BSW) Answer on these topics. The whole thing is moderated by Markus Preiß and Diana Zimmermann. The show, she also says at the beginning, wants to concentrate on topics that were neglected in the election campaign. Care, health, the concerns and needs of young voters, climate change.

After this announcement, it started directly: with questions about security policy.

The basic problem was already evident at this first point of discussion: Instead of a structured discussion about defense and defense ability, the round lost in a tangle of interruptions and personal attacks. Lindner announces the end of the “feminist foreign policy”, Baerbock attacks him: According to the Foreign Minister, he was too concerned with his leak from the traffic lights to deal with the politics that the remnant traffic lights still operated.

The actual questions – Europe’s role in world politics, the future of transatlantic relationships – went under in the roar. Jan van Aken from the left attacks NATO: he would like to leave it out in the long term.

The program has flashed the promised topics in a quick run. How is that supposed to work differently, with an “octel”, eighth duel? How should eight parties, eight top candidates-except for Merz and Scholz and Habeck, who took a day break from TV duels, were everyone there-chew up half a dozen topics in 90 minutes?

And so the subject areas became pure keywords for ever new outbreaks of chaos. Wild was also messed with in health and care policy. Wagenknecht is against health care reform and finds it bad that the health system has been privatized. Jan van Aken wants to abolish the contribution ceiling, Alice Weidel pay privately nourishing state, Lindner believes that everyone wants to distribute money, only he does not. Then he dueled again with Baerbock.

It complains: “May I say something, I didn’t say anything about health!” The moderation does not want to stall it, does not make it, Baerbock speaks of the “two -class system”, Lindner graps her in:

“Are your children insured?” – “You are legally insured.” – “In private health insurance you would pay your own contributions.”

The evening is peppered by such private feuds, not only, but especially between Lindner and Baerbock. What the viewer should take with them, except that some people can really not stand here, neither moderators nor discussants can answer that.

Speaking of: the moderation turned out to be frighteningly powerless. Preiß and Zimmermann did not succeed at any time, really not to curb the discussants. The helpless attempt to bring at least minimal clarity into the positions with yes-no-tablets at the beginning of every themed block.

At the end of the evening, when everyone chatted again, moderator Preiß resigned: “I inform you very briefly that nobody understands what you say. It was not just a surrender declaration, but a precise description of the evening.”

In the end there was a bitter knowledge: the “final round” was not a debate, but a cacophony of vanities. In theory, on paper, the idea for this debate was certainly exciting. If the politicians do not even let each other talk to each other here and they can’t just listen to even briefly without interrogating the other: Then this is an imposition for the audience and a certificate of poverty for political debate culture.

Anyone who has held this program for 90 minutes deserves the – admittedly thought – “Federal Cross of Merit for extraordinary concentration”. Fortunately, the election campaign will soon be over, otherwise you would really have to introduce it.