In Germany, a lackluster electoral debate a month before an uncertain election – archyworldys

In free fall in the polls, Armin Laschet (CDU-CSU, Christian Democrat) was to go on the offensive. As the new favorite, Olaf Scholz (SPD, Social Democrat) had no interest in taking risks. In the position of outsider, Annalena Baerbock (Greens) was required to mark her difference. By meeting on the RTL set for their first televised debate, Sunday, August 29, the three main candidates for Angela Merkel’s succession each had a well-defined roadmap.

For nearly two hours, they stuck to it to the letter. Starting with Armin Laschet, the one on whom the pressure was the strongest. Criticized for his indecision and lack of clarity, including in his camp, the leader of the Conservatives has done everything to erase his usual curves. Jaws clenched and gloomy eyes, he obviously wanted to avoid any smile that could have recalled the image that sticks to his skin since he was filmed hilariously, in mid-July, when he came to a town in the Rhineland devastated by the floods.

It was for Olaf Scholz, his now most threatening opponent, that he reserved his main blows. On defense issues, in particular reproaching the SPD for having opposed the use of armed drones by the Bundeswehr. Or by calling on the Social Democratic candidate to answer “no” to the question of a possible coalition with the left-wing party Die Linke. What the latter refused to say clearly, even if he suggested that the positions of this party on NATO or Europe made such an alliance very unlikely.

These two angles of attack were not chosen at random. One of Olaf Scholz’s weaknesses in this election is indeed the SPD, of which he is certainly the candidate today, but of which he failed to take the presidency, at the end of 2019, by being outvoted by the left. party. However, on defense policy as on the relationship with Die Linke, Olaf Scholz is in the uncomfortable position of someone who personally disagrees with the leadership of his party but who is politically bound not to say it too loudly.

Olaf Scholz’s “Merkelization”

Faced with these scratches, the candidate of the SPD opposed a sphinx impassibility, without necessarily responding precisely to his opponent but succeeding in destabilizing him by his ability to never let himself be taken aback. In the past, this automaton rhetoric has not always been put to his advantage, as recalled by the nickname “Scholzomat” with which he was given when he was general secretary of the party from 2002 to 2004. Today, the SPD candidate thinks that is his strength. Notably because this sobriety recalls that of Angela Merkel, of whom he has been the Minister of Finance since 2018 and of whom he presents himself as the heir. A filiation that the SPD claims by distributing for a few days a poster of its candidate marked with this sentence: “Er kann Kanzlerin” (“He can become chancellor”).

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