Chancellor Angela Merkel's would-be successor, Armin Laschet, pledged on Saturday to fight with everything that I can for victory in Germany's September 26 election, as the long-time leader's centre-right bloc kicked off its official campaign amid a worrying sag in its poll ratings.
Merkel joined Armin Laschet, a state governor and leader of her Christian Democratic Union party, to appeal to voters to extend the party's long run in the chancellery. Laschet is running to succeed Merkel after her 16 years in office.
“We will fight I will fight with everything that I can so that this country is not taken over by ideologues so that we have the opportunity to implement our ideas for this modern Germany," Laschet said. That is what we are fighting for. We will give everything we can, we will make the differences with the others clear. Who governs is fundamental. We want to govern."
An opinion poll by Forschungsgruppe Wahlen published on August 20, showed that support for Germany's governing party Christian Democratic Union fell by two points to 26 per cent. The support for the party was at 30 per cent about a month ago. It seems as though Chancellor Merkel stepping down is affecting the party's ranking. The Social Democrats, led by Finance Minister Olaf Scholz, gained three points to draw level on 19 per cent with the opposition the Greens.
Angela Merkel steps down as chancellor in September after 16 years of using her pragmatic approach to keep the country prosperous. On September 26, the country will go to the polls and elect Merkel's replacement. In the 2017 elections, the CDU got just under 33 per cent of the vote and are ruling in coalition with the SPD (Social Democratic Party).
“Laschet has manoeuvred himself into this situation,” Matthias Jung of Forschungsgruppe Wahlen told Reuters, commenting on Laschet's chances of succeeding Merkel as chancellor being slim and his popularity sinking. “He has made an awful lot of public appearances that have left a negative impression,” Jung added. Laschet's popularity is at 21 per cent, while the popularity of Olaf Scholz of SPD is at 44 per cent and the popularity of Greens candidate Annalena Baerbock is at 16 per cent.
CDU might still be a frontrunner overall, but, support for SPD is increasing. Merkel joined the CDU in 1989. in 1991, Merkel was appointed Minister for Women and Youth and in 1994, she was appointed Minister for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety and in 1998, she was appointed General Secretary of the party. The CDU, however, had lost the elections in 1998. in 2005, she was appointed to lead the coalition government consisting of CSU, CDU and SPD. Merkel, who has served as President of the European Council, has played an important role in managing the European debt crisis and keeping the continent united. Merkel's popularity rose with the party's and in the 2017 federal election, the CDU raced ahead for the fourth time and won the maximum number of seats.
“Let's be honest for a moment: it's tight, and it will be very tight in the coming weeks,” Markus Soeder, the head of the CDU's Bavarian sister party, the Christian Social Union said on August 21.
Everyone must understand today that everything is really at stake. This is not the question we philosophized about for months with whom we might prefer to govern. It is not the question of how we govern, but possibly whether.
It is time finally to fight, said Soeder, the governor of Bavaria. I have no interest in opposition. Soeder also told Laschet, You can rely on my support.
Scholz promising to increase the minimum hourly wage from 9.50 euros to 12 euros and a new 1 per cent wealth tax is one of the reasons the SPD seems to be faring well.
Another reason for the drop in CDU's popularity seems to be the federal government's response to the COVID-19 pandemic. As per a Deutschlandtrend survey that came out in April, only 19 per cent of citizens were satisfied with the government's response to the pandemic.
And while 58 per cent of those surveyed approved of Merkel as a leader, only 27 per cent said they would vote for the CDU.
As per the Economist's German election model, Olaf Scholz seems to be doing well, and Scholz seems to be a more likely candidate to head the government with a coalition consisting of CSU and SPD. The fact that Laschet was seen laughing in the background as he attended an event in July, where Merkel was talking about those who lost their lives in the floods, caused his popularity to drop further.
Merkel's leadership seems to be a contributing factor in the party's popularity, but not the only factor.
--With PTI inputs
