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Last Saturday in the Erzgebirge town of Aue, the Deputy Prime Minister of the Free State of Saxony turns into a geriatric nurse. Martin Dulig wears sneakers, dark jeans and a white shirt with the inscription "Senior Center Brünlasberg".
Seven pensioners gather in the common room of the nursing home, on television is running a telenovela. So loud that you would like to cover your ears.
Dulig has some yoghurt drinks in his hand. Second breakfast call them here. The SPD top candidate for election next Sunday bends down to a woman in a wheelchair. "May I open it for you?" He says, very loud. The woman with the thick glasses nods.
The distribution of yoghurt drinks is the 45-year-old's last job on this day. At seven o'clock in the morning he started as an intern in the care of the elderly, put the seniors in Aue, brought them food.
The pensioners praise him as a "good carer" who read the local paper and killed a wasp. Also, the 38-year-old nurse Heidi Franke, Dulig accompanied the day, is pleased. "He could start right here," she says.
"I want to get out into reality"
Dulig, for five years Minister of Economic Affairs in the black-red Saxon coalition, calls this campaign format "Your colleague Dulig". Even as a minister he has repeatedly slipped into different roles, worked for a day as an intern. At first he tried to go unnoticed. So he carried suitcases from airplanes, cleaned toilets or toiled in a supermarket.
"I want to get out into reality," he says. Politicians often went to companies, but he was concerned that it would not be wiped out the day before and that he would do the work with his own hands. Get in touch with the people, get to know their everyday life.
Actually a good concept. Only: it does not light. So say the retirees and the nurse in Aue, who are so excited by Dulig, after the appointment: SPD they would not vote.
Timo Lehmann
Martin Dulig in the old people's home Brünlasberg - act of the day: wasp killed for the pensioners
That is the problem of the Social Democrats in Saxony. Dulig is the most popular politician in the Free State, according to CDU Prime Minister Michael Kretschmer. But as much as he arrives at his citizens, it does not change the polls. For months, the party is seen between seven and nine percent. The SPD has always been comparatively weak in Saxony, with only a few thousand members. But this time, even the five-percent hurdle is in dangerous proximity.
From construction worker to youngest group leader
Dulig grew up in a Christian home. At first he worked as a construction worker, later he pursued a study of educational science. At 16 he became a father, at 18 he joined the SPD, at 25 he became Juso chairman and 2007 the youngest group chairman.
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From a dusty and unmotivated group Dulig made a party capable of government - and succeeded in entering the government. After years of saving, Kretschmer and Dulig bet on new investments: in education, the police, the infrastructure. Christian Democrats also say that the SPD has done a good job in the government.
But it does not help anything. The election campaign focuses on the strength of the AfD, the performance of the CDU and the Greens on the upswing. The SPD? Hardly happens.
The rest is done by the comrades in Berlin. For months, the federal party has been dealing with itself. The comrades in Saxony, Thuringia and Brandenburg have taken no account of the search for the new management staff. Almost without guidance, the party is drawn into the Eastern election campaign.
SPD now relies on Kenya coalition
After all, it is slowly dawning on the political opponents in Saxony that the SPD plays a decisive role. Computationally it looks as if it needed a Kenya coalition - ie an alliance of CDU, Greens and SPD - to assert itself against the AfD. With a narrow majority important: the election result of the SPD.
That's why Dulig has changed his strategy. He now drives a clear second vote campaign in the last week before the election. While Greens, Left, AfD, CDU hope for direct mandates, the first vote for the SPD has no meaning.
"Is there a majority for CDU, SPD and Greens, or does this country slip to the right and become ungovernable?" Asks Dulig in a new video. The Saxon Social Democrats did not want a Kenya coalition. But now this color combination is an opportunity. Dulig, the realist, has recognized that.
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