German elections, D – 20: Angela Merkel’s discreet campaign for Armin Laschet – archyde

With the approach of the German legislative elections of September 26, The world keeps the campaign log. A daily update, with events, images, polls, clips, slogans, figures and keywords that allow you to follow and experience this electoral competition at the end of which Angela Merkel will leave power, after sixteen years in the chancellery.

After the violent floods that hit western Germany in mid-July, Angela Merkel had visited the region twice, the first time in Rhineland-Palatinate, the second in North Rhine-Westphalia. In each of the two Länder, the Chancellor was accompanied by the head of the regional government, the Social Democrat Malu Dreyer (SPD) in Rhineland-Palatinate, the Christian Democrat Armin Laschet (CDU) in North Rhine-Westphalia. At the time, she had been careful not to make any statement of a political nature. But everyone had noted that she had made very warm gestures for the first while she had not had a word to defend the second, yet candidate of her own party to his succession and then in full turmoil after having been filmed hilariously in a city devastated by floods.

Back in the region, a month and a half later, Angela Merkel respected the forms. Like the first time, she first went to Rhineland-Palatinate on Friday before heading to North Rhine-Westphalia on Sunday. As in July, she was accompanied in the first case by Malu Dreyer and, in the second, by Armin Laschet. But unlike what happened at the time, the Chancellor clearly supported the latter, in great difficulty in the polls.

“Armin Laschet successfully governs this Land which is the largest in the Federal Republic of Germany. (…) When you know how to run a Land like this, you can also run the Federal Republic of Germany as chancellor ”, she said at a joint press conference with the one who aspires to take over.

„@Arminlaschet führt dieses größte Bundesland der Bundesrepublik Deutschland sehr erfolgreich. [..] Und wer so ein … https://t.co/xjTZvuqn8t

– CDU (@CDU Deutschlands)

In two weeks, this is the third time that Angela Merkel has taken a public stand in the context of the campaign. On August 21, during a CDU-CSU rally, she said “Deeply convinced” of the victory of Armin Laschet, saluting in particular its ability to “Building bridges between people”. Ten days later, during a press conference alongside Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz, passing through Berlin, this time she attacked her finance minister, Olaf Scholz, candidate of the Social Democratic Party (SPD), accusing her not to clearly rule out the possibility of a coalition with the left-wing Die Linke party.

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