We need new political personell
The Greens, Liberals and Socialdemocrats will run with the same candidates as last federal election. The CDU's candidate is an old political player as well.
With Robert Habeck now officially being chancellor nominee of the Greens, I think it is time to say that we need new political personell. While I believe that Habeck (Minister of Economic Affairs) is the best candidate for the Greens, it is still not an optimistic choice as he is not popular among Germans and often gets held responsible for our economic situation. It is not only the Greens who choose their same front-runner. FDP and SPD are on the path of doing the same. Scholz (SPD) wants to become chancellor again while being behind the far right AfD in polls and Christian Lindner (FDP) wants to come back into the Ministry of Financial Affairs after the election even though he has to hope that the FDP even makes it into parliament.
The FDP has been run by Christian Lindner for more than a decade. Lindner has brought the liberals back into Parliament after a heavy defeat in 2013. But he also led the party into the government and has not made a good picture there. Lindner did not manage to enforce actual liberal policies as he focussed way too much on clinging onto the debt brake.
Scholz has been in the federal government since 2018 and has never really been popular. I think it’s fair to say that he won the 2021 election more because of his opponent, Armin Laschet (CDU), being even less popular. Olaf Scholz has a tight connection to the CumEx-Scandal in which billions of tax money got evaded.
Robert Habeck (Greens) does not enjoy a good reputation because of our economy but also because of his Heizungsgesetzes (heating law). This heating law was perceived by many Germans in a way that showed the Greens’ Ideologiegetriebenheit (“ideology drivenness”), that they are paternalistic and want to invade the private lives of people. Habeck was already the runner-up candidate in 2021 with current Minister of Foreign Affairs, Annalena Baerbock, being the chancellor nominee. Now the roles are reversed.
The CDU’s sisterparty from Bavaria CSU are also nominating the same front-runner candidate as in 2021 - Alexander Dobrindt. Dobrindt has also already been in the federal government as Minister of Transport from 2013 to 2017. His term is connected to the Volkswagen Emission Scandal - Dieselgate. In 2015 he prevented a collective lawsuit.
With Alice Weidel and Tino Chrupalla, the far right AfD is also using the same nominees - only difference: Alice Weidel is running for chancellery. Their rethoric is based on spreading fear and hate. Weidel and the AfD do not show signs of becomimg less radical, instead they seem to be growing increasingly radical in their language and policy demands. The AfD is currently sitting at about 18% in second place.
In total we only have three parties with new candidates: The CDU, the Left and the newly formed Bündnis Sahra Wagenknecht. Friedrich Merz from the CDU will most likely become our next chancellor. He is no new figure in politics. After the lost elections in 2021 the CDU wanted to move more right after 16 years of Chancellery under Angela Merkel who drove a course of centre politics. Merz is not a new politician. He has been in the Bundestag before but had no place in the CDU under Angela Merkel. While Friedrich Merz is a new candidate in modern German politics, generally speaking, he is not a new face. With his fierce conservatism he stands for a CDU which would like to move backwards instead of moving forwards. He still hangs on to nuclear power and lately even said that he believes that one day Germany could remove windmills again “because they are ugly and because they do not fit in the landscape”.
The left has new candidates: Jan van Aken and Heidi Reichinnek. Both of them have been in parliament before and are trying to get the Left, which has been at about 3% for a long time now, back into parliament. I doubt that they will manage to do so as they have a very strong new competitor in the name of Sahra Wagenknecht. With Wagenknecht’s new party Alliance Sahra Wagenknecht we have a new player in the German party system but not a new face. Sahra Wagenknecht has been in politics (previously: the Left) for a long time and is known for her left-conservatism and her positive attitude towards Russia. I believe that she is not a benefit for German politics and instead threatens our democracy.
Sahra Wagenknecht is a thread to German Democracy
Amid coming coalition talks in three East German States Wagenknecht shows that Russian Propaganda is more important to her than actually governing for the people.
SPD, Greens and FDP haven’t learned their lesson
Nominating the same candidates as last election with every single one of them being a key player in the failing government is a mistake. It is a shame that especially Greens and FDP have not been able to enquire new political personell. Lindner has been running the FDP for so long, the party sometimes seems like a one-man party even though they actually have people with competence - such as Christian Dürr, Johannes Vogel or Marie-Agnes Strack-Zimmermann. Especially after this failed coalition it would be best for them to start a new era and build a new face. The same applies to the Greens. I think their problem is that they are failing at recruiting new, competent politicians. The old party leaders Ricarda Lang and Omid Nouripour were far from popular and the new party leaders Felix Banazsak and Franziska Brantner aren’t really known in the German population. Apart from Robert Habeck and Annalena Baerbock the next best would probably be Cem Özdemir - currently Minister of Agriculture and more recently also Minister of Education. But Özdemir will be leaving federal politics in 2026 as he will run as front-runner in the regional elections of Baden-Württemberg.
Even though Olaf Scholz insists that he will run for chancellery again, the voices inside of the SPD are getting louder. Scholz has been far from popular while Boris Pistorius (Minister of Defence) has been the most popular politician by far for a long time. It would be best for the SPD if they nominate Pistorius, yet I do not believe that they would win the election with him. He could not cover the dissatisfication with the SPD inside the coalition. Also, I believe that Germans know too little about him to want him as chancellor. He has been relatively quiet in the government. While he enjoys a good reputation for rebuilding the Bundeswehr people do not really know for what he stands besides that. What are his stances on pensions, minimum wage, social inequality? Nobody really knows. Still it is clear that Pistorius would be a far better pick than Chancellor Olaf Scholz. The SPD wants to nominate their chancellor nominee on January 11th. Only time will tell if Scholz will actually run again.