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FDP in misery: Christian Lindner is not to blame for everything

2020-09-19T09:26:10.073Z


The FDP is not doing well. This is mainly due to the mistakes that Christian Lindner made. The premature departure of General Secretary Linda Teuteberg and the low proportion of women in the party cannot, however, be accused of.


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The now outgoing FDP General Secretary Linda Teuteberg shortly after her election in April 2019

Photo: HAYOUNG JEON / EPA-EFE / REX

So that is clear: the FDP's crisis is primarily due to the chairman.

Christian Lindner not only bears political responsibility for the current state of his party, he has also made serious mistakes himself:

  • Lindner should have broken off the Jamaica explorations much earlier after the federal elections - or should have entered into real coalition negotiations.

    With the oblique timing of the exit, he pissed off many voters to whom he owed his return to the Bundestag.

    That still has an effect today.

    According to an internal survey by the FDP Hamburg, the exit from Jamaica was one of the reasons why the Hamburg FDP failed to pass the five percent hurdle at the beginning of the year.

  • Lindner should have embraced the promise of empathy from the FDP mission statement instead of desperately distancing himself from the Greens and annoying the Fridays for future movement, for example with the remark that climate protection is "a matter for professionals" .

    The young FDP member of the Bundestag, Konstantin Kuhle, warns in the current issue of SPIEGEL that there are people in the middle of society who do not want to do without their cars despite the climate crisis, and still voted for the Greens, "because they deal with the thoughtfulness and emotionality of Robert Habeck feel reasonably comfortable ".

    It sounds like Kuhle misses these qualities in his own chairman.

  • After the scandal about the election of the FDP state chairman Thomas Kemmerich as Thuringian Prime Minister, Lindner let things go first with the votes of the AfD.

    Instead of condemning Kemmerich's behavior on the same day, he apparently saw no problem in the right-wing election of the FDP man as prime minister and even hours later appealed to the Union, SPD and Greens to "accept Thomas Kemmerich's offer of talks".

    It was only two days later that Lindner called the acceptance of the election a mistake.

On the occasion of the premature departure of his general secretary and the election of a man as his successor, the FDP leader is now accused of another problem of the Liberals: the low proportion of women among members and in the committees.

The presentation by Teuteberg's successor Volker Wissing a few weeks ago was "a kick in the shin of a woman who is not present", judged the "editorial network Germany".

The replacement of Teuteberg reinforces the impression that the FDP is an eternal men's club.

Resistance to a quota comes mainly from women

That is true, but for once it is not the party leader's fault.

Lindner addressed the problem early on.

He was open to a quota that already exists in most other parties.

The resistance to this comes mainly from the women in the FDP.

Many of them argue that they do not want leadership positions to be due to their gender alone.

FDP Vice Katja Suding says that a quota system works well for the Greens, but she believes "that it would not fit a party like the Free Democrats. For us, the performance and qualifications of a candidate count."

Suding, one of the few prominent women in the FDP, recently announced her retirement as a deputy and is now joining demands for a dual leadership.

The Hamburg woman should perhaps be reminded that this concept also originally came from the Greens.

In addition, a double leadership equals the introduction of a quota through the back door: It would be hardly conceivable that the chair would consist of two men.

After all: Linda Teuteberg is not Christian Lindner's victim.

Last year he considered making his long-term companion Johannes Vogel from North Rhine-Westphalia as Secretary General.

But then it would have been said: One man helps the other with his career again.

Lindner decided in favor of Teuteberg because he wanted to promote a woman and because Teuteberg was able to do something that he rarely succeeds in: in migration policy, she gave the FDP a friendly face and at the same time took a tough stance on the matter.

Lindner's suggestion was well received.

92.8 percent of the delegates gave the Brandenburg woman their vote.

But Teuteberg did not use the leap of faith.

She did not manage to fill issues for the party and did not dare to bend the decision-making process in order to attract attention.

She looked insecure.

Not only Lindner had the feeling that she would not be able to successfully enter the federal election campaign with her as a manager.

Even Teuteberg's biggest fans back then are disappointed with their performance today.

The woman at the top of the party did not take advantage of her chance - and ultimately harmed the cause of women in the FDP.

Icon: The mirror

Source: spiegel

All news articles on 2020-09-19

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