Last laugh may yet belong to Merkel’s chosen heir as he dusts off ‘red broom’
The CDU’s Armin Laschet has fought a poor campaign but knows how to see off the Left in elections
ARMIN LASCHET has stared electoral defeat in the face before in the dying days of a campaign and emerged triumphant against the odds.
Now the CDU’s chosen successor to Angela Merkel is hoping for a repeat. Four years ago, he sprung a surprise last-minute victory to become minister-president of North RhineWestphalia, once a cornerstone of Germany’s red wall.
The CDU faithful still talk of Mr Laschet’s “red broom” that swept away the centre-Left SPD and replaced them with Christian Democrats in Germany’s biggest state.
Today he is facing a battle with the same party, but at a national level, as he tries to beat Olaf Scholz, the SPD candidate who served as finance minister in the grand coalition government of the final Merkel years.
With Mrs Merkel’s blessing and a high profile, it was seen as Mr Laschet’s election to lose. But slip-ups including laughing at an event to mark the floods that devastated his state earlier this year mean he may do just that. He has squandered a lead that once stood at 30 per cent. Going into today’s elections, polls had the CDU on 25 per cent – one per cent behind.
Now his supporters in the historically socialist industrial heartland, where 21.6 per cent of the population live, want Mr Laschet to get out the red broom again and become the first new chancellor in 16 years.
It will be a tough ask. Even in his home state, drumming up support for the CDU has been an uphill climb.
“I have never campaigned in such a brutal and stressful election campaign,” said Gisela Manderla, a CDU Bundestag candidate for Cologne, the largest city in North RhineWestphalia. “But I believe that Laschet can do it again and have another surprise victory.” More votes than ever before cast by post, 40 per cent, because of the pandemic.
Mr Laschet’s campaigners point to his warmth compared to a distant and cold Mr Scholz. “He looks people in the eye,” said one voter in Cologne.
“He is a real Rhinelander,” said Mrs Manderla, “and he has his own ideas. He is a convinced European, for example, and he is a politician who can bring people together.”
“He does not want to be Merkel 2.0 and has always tried to separate himself a little from her but it is not simple to find the balance between being a follower or his own man.”
Mr Scholz, the vice-chancellor in Mrs Merkel’s coalition government, has run as a continuity candidate. But Mr Laschet has also earned a reputation for flip-flopping in his pandemic response, and there is disappointment that he has not made one campaign appearance in Cologne, where Mr Scholz held a rally on Friday.
Mrs Manderla admits she is “nervous” about keeping her seat in the city, Germany’s fourth-biggest. She said she had never been confronted by so many CDU voters asking her why they should back the party.
The shadow of Mrs Merkel also looms large. Many have asked her why ‘Mutti’ cannot simply run again.
In response, Mr Laschet has been forced to deploy the chancellor on the campaign trail. “He needs her,” said Mrs Manderla. “But I don’t think Mrs Merkel ever thought she would have to do so many campaign events.”
Yesterday Mr Laschet took to the podium alongside Mrs Merkel at a flagship rally in his home town of Aachen. She praised the “Aachener” who had led “a successful state” with “passion and heart”.
Ignoring repeated heckles, Mr Laschet said he would “use the last minute” of the campaign to fight for victory. He repeated his campaign warning that the SPD could go into coalition with far Left parties, which he said opposed the EU and Nato.
There were chants of “Armin, Armin” but the posters for the rally only gave him second billing. They trumpeted the arrival of Mrs Merkel “with Armin Laschet”.
That may be because in the last few months, he has scarcely been seen in the town where he still lives. The only signs of him have been the CDU hoardings outside the train station. “An Aachener for Germany” reads the slogan below his beaming, face.
But the folksy reference to his roots hasn’t made much of an impact here.
Mr Laschet refused to stand as a candidate directly elected for Aachen to avoid an embarrassing bloody nose in his own backyard.
In last year’s mayoral elections, the Greens candidate won a resounding victory, taking 70 per cent of the vote.
“He always wants to be identified with Aachen so much. Why then did he not stand?,” said Oliver Krisher, a Greens member of the Bundestag standing in the city.
Aachen, which boasts the final resting place of Charlemagne, has proved a graveyard for aspiring chancellors. Martin Schulz, who also hails from the town, was the SPD’s lead candidate and handed a drubbing by Mrs Merkel at the last election. The former European Parliament president is now a backbencher.
There is now a three-way battle for Aachen, a city closely associated with the EU because of its proximity to Brussels and Paris, but the expectation is that the SPD will prove victorious.
Daniel Freund, a Greens MEP, blames Mr Laschet’s waning popularity on his weak stance towards tackling climate change.
The area surrounding Aachen is dominated by three huge open coal mines. The Tagebau Hambach mine is the largest in Europe. Mr Freund said: “Mr Laschet still likes to tell everyone that he is the son of a coal miner... we have a lot of problems with the way he does or doesn’t do climate change.”
After severe floods, which were caused by climate change, hit the state, Mr Laschet said, “Because of a day like today, one does not change one’s politics”. He was infamously caught on camera laughing with aides when visiting flood victims.
His poor eco-credentials also came up among young voters in Aachen, a university town.
Philipp Noack, 28, is a masters student and an Aachener born and bred. He knows Mr Laschet personally because he is friends with his eldest son.
After he criticised Mr Laschet for his climate policies on Twitter, the politician called him and they debated climate change on the telephone.
“In the end we thanked each other but agreed to disagree on the solutions,” said Mr Noack, who is voting for the Greens.
“He’s actually a fun guy – so long as you don’t talk about politics.”