"Hard but fair" (ARD): "Laschet could do his party a favor" – and resign

Is Germany facing a long struggle for power after the general election? In the political talk “Hard but fair” at Plasberg, the question is discussed: Who will be Chancellor?

Berlin – “Sekt or Selters?” Asks Frank Plasberg on ARD and starts with a clip in which a colleague lets people in Berlin-Reinickendorf choose between Sekt and Selters bottles on behalf of the citizens of the country. “It’s too early for the champagne,” one of the respondents summarized the state of the nation. Because the day after the federal election in 2021, the guesswork really starts: Who will be Chancellor, and who will form a coalition with whom? Frank Plasberg’s debate promises to be explosive, not only because there are representatives of all parties that are eligible for coalition negotiations, but also the author and “Spiegel” columnist Sascha Lobo, who is known for sharp-tongued contributions, and the analytically versed ZEIT political department editor Mariam Lukewarm.

“Hard but fair” (ARD): points victory for Scholz

For Armin Laschet, at least that is the unanimous opinion among Frank Plasberg’s guests, there is absolutely no reason to toast with sparkling wine. Even Tilman Kuban, federal chairman of the Junge Union, says clearly: “We lost the election, the ball is in the SPD’s playing field.” Why did Armin Laschet claim the chancellorship himself on election evening?

“Can’t he really remember saying that?” Wonders host Plasberg and plays the relevant Laschet quote again to be on the safe side. Mariam Lau also finds clear words when she reports on the mood among the CDU MPs, who have now lost their mandate: “I am shocked at how bled the party is. Armin Laschet could do her a favor now, ”she says. And of course means the resignation.

“Hard but fair” with Frank Plasberg (ARD): Two kingmakers

The mood in the FDP and the Greens is completely different. “What can you learn from the FDP in your new role as kingmaker?” Asks Frank Plasberg the Green MP Renate Künast. Above all, she wants to talk about content such as climate policy, the transport and energy transition and not about offices and personnel issues, which is developing into a kind of running gag of the show, according to which politicians always want to talk about content, journalists, on the other hand, always want to talk about personnel issues. Sascha Lobo pointedly throws in that content was overrated, Angela Merkel would have won in 2013 with a completely empty election campaign. The key message at the time was: “You know me”.

In any case, Renate Künast wants to talk about coalitions “with all democratic parties”, which later led to a heated debate with Tilman Kuban, who is of the opinion that the left is not a democratic party. Which is completely irrelevant, at least for the coalition question, since the Left Party cannot become part of a three-party alliance in terms of numbers.

“Tough but fair” with Frank Plasberg (ARD): The end of the popular parties?

Since the Greens and the FDP first want to work out where the similarities for such an alliance might lie, it is not surprising that the deputy FDP parliamentary group leader Alexander Graf Lambsdorff is extremely open-minded about Renate Künast and she is right on many, albeit largely harmless, points gives. “We have to see how we can get together,” is his credo. At the same time, he weaves fine points against the SPD when he emphasizes that there are not even two percentage points between it and the CDU.

Which in the further course inspires him to analyze the current situation. “We now have a completely new party system”, namely four democratic parties that are numerically not too far apart. He sees a new closeness to Europe growing out of this, after all, in the Netherlands or the Scandinavian countries, for example, traditionally several small instead of a few large parties are elected. Mariam Lau and Sascha Lobo also agree: there is “no return to the big popular parties”. Sascha Lobo goes one step further and says we have finally arrived in the 21st century. Because Angela Merkel had once again extended the 20th century in her “felt 62 years in office”.

But what about the supposedly “happy election winner” SPD? Kevin Kühnert has his say quite late, but all the more emphatically. “26 percent is a great result for us,” he emphasizes, emphasizing the good preparatory work of the last few years and is not confused by Plasberg’s tip whether he means the fact that the base Olaf Scholz 2019 will not Elected chairman. Kühnert does not want to fully engage with the thesis of the end of the people’s parties either, warns of such “really big analyzes” after elections, but skilfully emphasizes the election in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, where Manuela Schwesig was able to clear away with a dream result. “The Union will also recover,” he adds generously.

“Hard but fair” with Frank Plasberg (ARD): Bad election campaign

A displayed statistic promises different things for the future. Accordingly, it was mainly under 25-year-olds, the majority of the Greens and first-time voters, the majority of whom voted for the FDP. But why did it not become much more clear in the end for the Greens, who, as Mariam Lau remembers, could temporarily “expect 20 percent”. Sascha Lobo demands honesty from Renate Künast with an obvious play on words: “Just admit: ‘We screwed up the election campaign'”.

Renate Künast expresses doubts as to whether one would really have done better with Robert Habeck as candidate for chancellor, and distracts from Annalena Baerbock’s election campaign on the subject of Hatespeach. “A lot was very humiliating,” she states, to which Alexander Graf von Lambsdorff agrees, also with a view to the platform giants Google and Facebook and the growing disinformation caused by fake news. Frank Plasberg’s iron is too hot or at least “too complicated for this lap”.

“Hard but fair” with Frank Plasberg (ARD): Drifting away on tax issues

He apparently does not consider a tax debate to be too complicated, which he sparked between Alexander Graf von Lambsdorff and Kevin Kühnert, and which revolves around the question of why Kevin Kühnert spoke of Christian Lindner as an “airman” during the election campaign, although it was clear was that he now had to negotiate with him. In the debate about which tax policy would really be more sustainable and what role the “wealth tax” that Plasberg invoked as a “voodoo word” could play in this, Kühnert and Lambsdorff went into so much detail that Renate Künast was already on a “special tax program” that evening. sees drifting away and Sascha Lobo also complains about the dominance of the topic.

Frank Plasberg takes all the blame on himself, and at the end expresses a pious wish for Christmas: Could the new government be in place until then? The formation of a government has taken an average of 49 days so far, but in the 2017 election it was an impressive 171 days, i.e. almost six months. He brought a small piece of candy with him to digest this bitter prospect: a recycled version of this year’s New Year’s address by Angela Merkel – converted to the year 2022. (Teresa Schomburg)