This is how the election campaign in Germany is scrutinized in France
In Germany, the electoral campaign of the legislatures was disrupted by the floods. The point of Le Monde
It is even more difficult to know – we read in the Le Monde article – whether the disaster that hit the Rhineland in mid-July will have an impact on the outcome of the September 26 elections, since polls conducted since then have shown an opinion. public full of contradictions.
Since 2002, the Germans have been aware that the floods are capable of affecting the elections . In August of that year, five weeks before the parliamentary elections, Social Democratic Chancellor Gerhard Schröder (SPD) took a decisive advantage over his conservative rival Edmund Stoiber (CSU) following the devastating flooding of the Elbe River in eastern Germany. Schröder's popularity increased after he quickly went to the scene, wearing rubber boots, and decided to postpone his plan to cut taxes in the affected areas for a year. On 22 September he won the elections. His defeat was expected five weeks earlier.
Nineteen years later, will the terrible floods that hit the Rhineland on the night between 14 and 15 July be equally decisive for the outcome of the parliamentary elections on 26 September? Two months after the vote, it is even more difficult to answer the question, as polls carried out after the disaster describe public opinion full of contradictions.
According to an RTL / NTV poll published on Friday 23 July, 56% of Germans believe that the floods, which have killed at least 180 people, according to the latest report, make the fight against climate change "even more important than first". And 73% think their leaders should be more ambitious in this area. Only supporters of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) are in the majority of the opposite opinion.
Of the three main candidates for Angela Merkel's succession, it is environmentalist Annalena Baerbock who, unsurprisingly, is considered the most credible on the climate issue. According to a Civey / Der Spiegel poll on July 24, 56% of respondents believe that the leader of the Greens will take "decisive action against climate change" if she becomes chancellor. Only 35% think the same of the Social Democrat Olaf Scholz (SPD) and 26% of the conservative Armin Laschet (CDU-CSU).
In principle, this should give ecologists an advantage in terms of voting intentions. But this is not the case. In the barometer of the INSA institute, they dropped from 19% to 18% between June 27 and July 24. In the barometer of the Infratest dimap institute, they dropped from 21% to 19% between 24 June and 22 July. Against all odds, the Greens are in a worse position after the floods than before.
In fact, this isn't all that surprising. When torrential rains hit the Rhineland, Annalena Baerbock was just beginning to shake off the controversy sparked at the end of June by accusations of plagiarism against her programmatic book. After this difficult sequence, he decided to keep a low profile. Two days after the floods, she went to the Rhineland, but without inviting the press. Since then, his rare interventions have been limited to rather general comments calling for a ban on building in areas prone to flooding and better coordination of warning systems in case of bad weather.
“DO NOT INSTRUMENTALIZE” THE DISASTER
The Greens, who are often portrayed by their opponents as eternal lickers, take this restraint by ensuring that they do not want to "exploit" the disaster for electoral purposes. The fact remains that by refusing to expose herself too much, Annalena Baerbock ran the risk of being invisible. Or at least strangely absent from a campaign that has refocused overnight on one issue – climate protection – which is at the heart of its program.
Armin Laschet, on the other hand, opted for the opposite strategy: that of maximum visibility, both on the ground and in the media. As minister-president of North Rhine-Westphalia, the state with the highest death toll after Rhineland-Palatinate, he probably couldn't do otherwise. But this desire to be omnipresent backfired when, on Saturday 17 July, he was filmed laughing behind the President of the Republic, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, who had come to support the victims in the town of Erftstadt, near Bonn.
On social networks, the images went viral and the hashtag #Laschetlacht (“Laschet laughs”) quickly became the most trending topic on Twitter in Germany. Over the next few days, Armin Laschet repeatedly said he "regretted" his laugh, calling it "inappropriate" and "indecent". But the damage was done: in seconds, his joviality turned into a ball and chain. And his reputation as an affable and empathetic man has been replaced by that of a callous and cynical leader.
In the polls, the punishment is harsh. According to an INSA poll on July 24, only 15% of Germans would vote for Armin Laschet if the election of the chancellor were by direct universal suffrage. A week ago it was 20%. Even in his field, the conservative leader is not unanimously supported. On Saturday, July 24, a Civey Institute study for the Augsburger Allgemeine newspaper showed that only 48% of CDU-CSU supporters believe their candidate has "learned the right lesson from the floods." The contrast with her opponents is striking: 87% of Green voters approve of the way Annalena Baerbock has behaved, while 74% of Social Democratic supporters think the same of their candidate Olaf Scholz.
ARMIN LASCHET STILL HAS THE MOST POSSIBILITIES
Despite his lousy image, Armin Laschet still has the highest chance of succeeding Angela Merkel. The CDU-CSU continues to lead the race in terms of voting intentions. In the four polls conducted after the floods, he is credited with 27% to 30% of the vote. Compared to previous weeks, the variations are minimal. With an advantage of 8-12 points over the Greens and 10-14 points over the SPD, the Conservatives enter the last two months of the campaign as favorites. And this, even if their predicted score is much lower than that obtained in 2017 (32.9%).
Remains Olaf Scholz. Of the three main contenders for Angela Merkel's succession, the SPD candidate is undoubtedly the one who has stood up best to the sequence of the past ten days. He arrived in the affected region on the day of the disaster and was not accused of being too discreet, like Annalena Baerbock, nor did he missteps, like Armin Laschet. And as federal finance minister, he was the one who announced a € 200 million emergency aid package on 21 July, promising that it would be followed by a multi-billion-euro reconstruction program.
In the role of the minister ready to spend lavishly to help the victims – "The money will be released quickly and without bureaucracy, and if it turns out that more is needed, we will give more," he promised – Olaf Scholz clearly followed in Gerhard's footsteps. Schröder in 2002, but without the charisma. His popularity has increased: between July 17 and 24, the percentage of voters who say they would vote for him in the event of a direct election of the chancellor rose from 18% to 21%, according to INSA. In the same period, Armin Laschet lost 5 points (from 20% to 15%) and Annalena Baerbock remained stable (14%).
But what is true of Armin Laschet is also true of Olaf Scholz. Just as the CDU-CSU did not see its voting intentions suffer from the unpopularity of its candidate, the SPD did not benefit from the good image of its leader. In polls conducted after the floods, the Social Democrats are credited with 15% -17% of the vote, ahead of the FDP liberals (11% -12%), the AfD (9% -11%) and the left-wing Die Linke (6% -8%). This is the level they have been at since Olaf Scholz announced his candidacy for the chancellery in August 2020.
“This campaign is full of a lot of ambivalence. Scholz is a popular candidate, but it is the Greens who are seen as competent on the climate issue, now at the forefront, and the CDU-CSU still has a good image, ”sums up Thorsten Faas, professor of political sociology at the Free University of Berlin. . Regarding floods, "if they can help the Greens in the medium term, in the short term it will be Scholz and Laschet who will have the advantage," says the researcher.
"WE EXPECT THEM TO SHOW EMPATHY AND DETERMINATION"
Unlike Annalena Baerbock, who is only a member of parliament, the SPD and CDU-CSU candidates have executive responsibilities, one as the federal finance minister, the other as the head of the government of North Rhine-Westphalia. “Their current positions put them at the forefront. They are expected to show empathy and to act decisively. In Laschet's case, this was only partially successful. That's why Sholz probably still has a chance, ”analyzes Thorsten Faas.
In 2002, the catastrophic Elbe flood took place five weeks before the elections. This year, floods hit the Rhineland ten weeks before the elections. The floods have shifted the political agenda and overwhelmed the rest of the news for nearly a fortnight, but there is no guarantee that this will still be the case when the election campaign in Germany really gets underway. In the second half of August, with the end of the holidays, the first major gatherings – that of the CDU-CSU is scheduled for August 21 in Rust (Baden-Württemberg) – and the televised debate between Annalena Baerbock, Armin Laschet and Olaf Scholz on August 29 on RTL.
Finally, in 2002, the floods allowed the outgoing chancellor, Gerhard Schröder, to don the costume of Krisenmanager ("crisis manager"), to regain control of a campaign that was not going well for him and to be re-elected for a second term against Edmund Stoiber. Nineteen years later, the woman who succeeded him in 2005, Angela Merkel, is benefiting in an equally spectacular way.
The chancellor came to the disaster areas twice in two days and was the political winner of this sequence. One image, in particular, made a lasting impression: on 18 July, when she took the hand of the minister president of Rhineland-Palatinate (SPD), Malu Dreyer, who suffers from multiple sclerosis, to help her through the devastated village by Schuld. According to the INSA institute, 60% of voters believe Angela Merkel behaved appropriately after the floods, which puts her far ahead of Olaf Scholz (39%), Armin Laschet (23%) and Annalena Baerbock ( 22%). But unlike the latter, and unlike Gerhard Schröder in 2002, she is not a candidate in the elections.
(Extract from the foreign press review by Epr Comunicazione)
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/mondo/ecco-come-in-francia-si-scruta-la-campagna-elettorale-in-germania/ on Sat, 31 Jul 2021 06:07:07 +0000.