Baden-Württemberg: And then the CDU prime candidate apologizes in entrance of the cameras | EUROtoday

Manuel Hagel might have feared {that a} piece of stories about him that had been making headlines since Tuesday afternoon would even be mentioned within the night. The CDU prime candidate stands behind a lectern, to his proper is Green Party competitor Cem Özdemir and to his left is AfD prime candidate Markus Frohnmaier. Per week and a half earlier than the state elections on March eighth, they’ll compete stay in a “Triell” on Südwestdeutscher Rundfunk and current their political objectives. “The debate – who will convince Baden-Württemberg?” is the identify of the TV format.

The indisputable fact that Frohnmaier was allowed to be there precipitated appreciable dialogue prematurely. The FDP, which felt deprived, even tried in useless to sue for participation. Shortly earlier than the beginning of this system, the outgoing Prime Minister Winfried Kretschmann (Greens) criticized. “I don’t think that’s right,” stated the Green politician when requested by a journalist in Stuttgart. Frohnmaier will “under no circumstances become Prime Minister – it is now obvious, according to all the other parties, that no one wants to form a coalition with him!” In the top, the broadcaster has to determine for itself who might be there at Triell. The SWR is unbiased of the state and it has to “respect that,” stated Kretschmann.

The SWR, in flip, justifies the number of candidates by saying that events which can be equally common with voters must be represented accordingly. In surveys, the CDU is as much as 28 % forward of the Greens with round 23 % and the AfD with most not too long ago 20 %. The Greens have not too long ago caught up, which is making the CDU uneasy.

But Hagel now has a way more urgent drawback. An Instagram video from the Green Party member of the Bundestag Zoe Mayer has been circulating within the media since Tuesday afternoon.

In it she criticizes Hagel’s eight-year-old statements in a TV interview. At that point, Hagel reported, amongst different issues, a go to to a secondary college. “A few weeks ago I was in a secondary school in our constituency; one class, 80 percent girls. There are worse dates for 29-year-old MPs than this. Then, I will never forget it, the first question began. Her name was Eva, brown hair, fawn eyes.” The moderator interjects: “She’ll be blushing at home when she sees that right here,” and Hagel says with a smile: “I don’t say any last names.”

Green MP Mayer asks a number of questions within the video that convey an accusation of sexism towards Hagel: “What does a grown man mean by saying that it is a particularly nice appointment when he sits in a classroom with a maximum of sixteen-year-olds? Why does it have to be about the appearance of this underage girl when her question is actually the focus? And what kind of signal does that send to girls and young women who want to get involved in politics?” Some, Green politician Mayer continued within the video, would possibly say that that is innocent, “but perhaps this perception is the real problem.” Mayer says she was despatched the hail video after she talked about sexualization amongst center college college students in one other Instagram video.

There are actually a number of hundred feedback below the present video with the hail scene, a lot of which criticize Hagel’s statements and there are even insults. The shitstorm additionally reaches Hagel’s Instagram account. Hagel has responded to media inquiries and explains the earlier statements: “The beginning of this interview in 2018 was rubbish. My wife immediately gave me a heads up. Dr. Mayer is now twelve days before the state elections, eight years too late.”

Frohnmaier seems within the SWR Triell as an opposition politician

These are the worst doable situations for a triad during which everybody needs to show why they’re finest suited to turn out to be the subsequent prime minister. But there was no outward signal of Hagel on Tuesday night, and the subsequent hour and a half was about political subjects. AfD frontman Frohnmaier proves to be extraordinarily disagreeable for Özdemir and Hagel as a result of he can act from a snug opposition function. Frohnmaier can be not confronted with the truth that the AfD regional affiliation is being noticed by the Office for the Protection of the Constitution as a suspected right-wing extremist case or with what closeness it has to Russia. “I will probe the colleagues who are in government and who tend to forget that their parties are currently in government,” says the 34-year-old proper firstly.

Frohnmaier repeatedly takes duty for the 2 rivals as representatives of the green-black state authorities that has existed since 2016. Özdemir as soon as replies that he’s not a member of the state authorities, however that does not assist a lot, in spite of everything, the 60-year-old can be Kretschmann’s desired political inheritor. The 37-year-old Hagel helps form state politics as CDU state chief and parliamentary group chief within the state parliament and needs to turn out to be Kretschmann’s successor.

Özdemir and Hagel are shut collectively on the central problems with financial coverage, training, well being and housing coverage, together with the deportation of rejected asylum seekers. Özdemir is of the opinion: “Those who are willing to punish must leave our country. The others who are doing training and are needed in the company will stay.” Hagel mainly sees it the identical manner: “Many of what Mr. Özdemir has described are goals that are correct.” But his social gathering, the Greens, is “fighting tooth and nail against the way we achieve these goals.” Frohnmaier emphasizes that his social gathering makes a strict distinction between authorized and unlawful migration, and he sees similarities in content material with the CDU, for instance in terms of calling for an immigration mannequin like Canada’s: “Everything you’ve said sounds pretty much like our program,” says Frohnmaier.

Özdemir interjects that the AfD’s “remigration” can be about deporting migrants or their descendants with a German passport. Frohnmaier replies: “Anyone who is legally in Germany, works here, has done something with their own hands, pays taxes, is part of the solidarity community, speaks our language, is very welcome.” And he says: “According to your logic, I should also be deported, I was born in Romania.”

Hagel: AfD can be a “mass layoff program” for Stuttgart

In maybe his strongest second, Hagel as soon as once more rejected the AfD: his social gathering would “never form a coalition or cooperate with Germany’s AfD.” The AfD needs “out of the EU, they want out of the euro”. Eight out of ten vehicles right here within the nation are produced for the worldwide market. “It would be a mass layoff program for the Stuttgart region, it would be a reduction program for Baden-Württemberg, it would lead to layoffs, especially for people with low incomes. In terms of economic policy, that is insane,” stated Hagel.

He additionally refers to a press release by AfD co-chair Emil Sätze, who stated about CSU chief Markus Söder: “I mean, Söder is not only physically disabled, sometimes mentally too. (…) But we let him live – he’s always funny.” In the case of the AfD, there’s apparently a connection between incapacity and the query of who’s allowed to stay. “We will protect our country and the people in our country from you,” says Hagel.

Frohnmaier does not wish to depart it like this: “We as the AfD don’t devalue people with handicaps, with a disability,” he says. He can be the daddy of two kids and would love them each simply as a lot if they’d a incapacity.

Frohnmaier, then again, repeatedly will get the opposite two into hassle when he feedback on their recommendations and calls for one thing like this: “It took you five or ten years to understand what needs to change in order to finally put Baden-Württemberg on the fast track. You both govern. You would have the opportunity at any time to implement everything that you announced this evening and have understood.” The issues in Baden-Württemberg are “homemade”. The CDU has had management of the Ministry of Economic Affairs in Baden-Württemberg for ten years.

Hagel and Özdemir attempt to discover differentiated solutions, however there are not any easy solutions. Hagel needs to arrange “special economic zones” with fewer guidelines, and Hagel, Özdemir and Frohnmaier wish to scale back forms. When it involves supplying hospitals, Özdemir says that it’ll not be doable to keep up all hospitals. Hagel thinks now we have to get to the buildings. Frohnmaier, then again, thinks that the largest drawback is that hospitals are thought of economically.

Candidates ask one another a query

At the top, every candidate ought to ask one other query. It is a chance to embarrass the individual being requested. Hagel reminds us that Russia’s struggle towards Ukraine has lasted 4 years and asks Frohnmaier whether or not he considers Russian President Vladimir Putin to be a struggle prison. Frohnmaier replies that the courts must determine that. It is a “war of aggression by the Russians on Ukraine that violates international law,” and the AfD needs “peace to be reached in Ukraine as quickly as possible.”

Özdemir turns to Hagel: “We have governed this country well together for ten years, in good days and bad, under green leadership.” He want to know what Hagel appreciates in regards to the Greens in Baden-Württemberg. And Hagel solutions: “You are right, with Winfried Kretschmann we have led our country very stably and very reliably over the years, and the Greens also played their part in that.”

Then it’s Frohnmaier’s flip. He directs his query to Özdemir. It’s in regards to the video with the delicate Hagel feedback to the secondary college scholar from 2018. “As a father of a daughter, after I saw the video today, I changed my mind,” says Frohnmaier. He discovered that very irritating. “I have to tell you honestly, I don’t think this is normal.” He requested Özdemir whether or not he might think about additional cooperation with the CDU towards this background.

Özdemir replies: “I’m sure Mr. Hagel wouldn’t put it that way today. Besides, I think we agree that women should be judged the way men are judged: based on their performance, nothing else.” Mr. Hagel also needs to be given the chance to say one thing. The CDU prime candidate apologized stay once more and emphasised that one sentence within the interview was “crap”: “I wouldn’t say that anymore today.”

Kristian Frigelj studies for WELT on federal and state political points, notably from North Rhine-Westphalia and Baden-Württemberg.