From tv duel to beer tent: Schulz goes on the attack
After the failed turnaround in the TV duel with chancellor angela merkel, challenger martin schulz is now stepping up his attack in the final spurt to the general election.
Unions leadership warns own ranks against certainty of victory. And the small parties are trying to mobilize by pointing out that third place could decide the future budget government.
At the gillamoos folk festival in abensberg, lower bavaria, schulz told supporters in the beer tent: "what became clear yesterday: there is someone who wants to administer the past, who is named angela merkel. And there is someone who wants to shape the future, and he is martin schulz."He again attacked turkish president recep tayyip erdogan and reiterated his call for a halt to eu accession talks. "At some point, you have to tell them enough is enough."
Federal labor minister andrea nahles (SPD) sees the TV duel as a good starting point for the final weeks of the election campaign, despite the disappointing polls. "Martin schulz has clearly won on the issue of social justice, even with burgernahe," nahles told the deutsche presse-agentur. This is what the SPD is counting on in the coming days. German justice minister heiko maas (SPD) told dpa that schulz had been convincing and sovereign. "The duel will give martin schulz and the entire SPD a tailwind."
The SPD leader had lost the only television duel on sunday evening, according to polls, despite being more crude in his attacks. Faced with an average 15 percentage point gap to the union, the SPD could only win with a rapid race to catch up.
Union faction leader volker kauder nonetheless pressed the euphoria brake. Although the CDU and CSU now entered the final spurt to the election on 24 march with great confidence. September. In an interview with dpa, he warned: "but we also know that the election will not be decided in a TV duel."
Merkel was concerned on monday about another important issue in the election campaign: air pollution caused by diesel exhaust fumes. At a meeting with representatives of cities and states, she pledged an additional 500 million euros to support projects in municipalities. This is how impending driving bans can still be averted. The fund set up at the diesel summit at the beginning of august is thus to comprise one billion euro. Vice chancellor sigmar gabriel (SPD) wants to make the auto industry pay more. They could "definitely contribute more" than the 250 million euros pledged so far.
In the only duel before the election, schulz had accused merkel of making serious mistakes in the refugee crisis. In addition, he reproached her for wanting to introduce retirement at 70. Merkel vigorously contradicted in each case.
In flash polls by ARD and ZDF on the TV duel, merkel was in the lead. However, the figures from the infratest dimap institute and the wahlen research group were very different. According to ARD, merkel was ahead by 55 to 35 percent, the largest margin ever in her three duels as chancellor. On ZDF, it was much closer: the chancellor received 32 percent of the vote, schulz 29 percent.
From the point of view of left-wing leader katja kipping, it’s mainly right-wing parties that benefit from the exchange of blows. "The real winners were the right-wing populists and the capital side," she told ARD’s "morgenmagazin" program. Topics that "really bothered people were hardly mentioned at all". Left-wing top candidate dietmar bartsch spoke of a "rough coalition therapy talk. "Martin schulz has not separated himself from the union."
The greens missed schulz’s ideas for the future. "It was to be expected that there would be no dynamic for change coming from merkel, but there was no impetus for real social and ecological change in these dramatic times coming from martin schulz either," top candidate katrin goring-eckardt told dpa.
FDP leader christian lindner criticized at the gillamoos folk festival that the tv duel was too much about refugees and managers. In between, however, there are millions of people who are not in need, but who are also not out of the woods. "These people were asking themselves last night: where was i??"
In discussion rounds on ARD and ZDF, representatives of the smaller parties engaged in a livelier exchange of blows on monday. On ZDF, for example, left-wing top candidate bartsch called the election promise by the CDU/CSU and the SPD to create 15,000 new police positions at the federal and state levels "unserious": anyone who knows the ropes knows that only a good 1,000 police officers could be trained each year. He, grunen’s top candidate katrin goring-eckardt and federal transport minister alexander dobrindt (CSU) accused each other of being responsible for cutting police jobs in recent years. Bavaria’s interior minister joachim herrmann (CSU) and grunen’s top candidate cem ozdemir also attacked each other on the topic of internal security on ARD.
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