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The situation in the morning: again candidate for chancellor at the age of 75?

2020-09-12T06:43:59.582Z


The CSU celebrates its birthday today and we want to honor that. A major political mood test is due in North Rhine-Westphalia. And there is news in the Navalny case. That is the situation on Saturday.


Ois Guade, CSU

It won't be a lavish party.

The party-affiliated Hanns Seidel Foundation is presenting the potential Schenkelklopferbuch "75 revelations about a party" on its 75th birthday, and CSU boss Markus Söder is willing to give a live-stream talk to the world.

You can of course look at it, but the crucial question for the next year of life will certainly not be answered in this context: Does the CSU give itself a candidate for Chancellor for a birthday?

Will Söder be the top candidate of the union parties in the federal election in 2021? 

Icon: enlarge

Markus Söder

Photo: Sven Hoppe / dpa

The Christian Socialists have already tried to go to the Chancellery twice - Strauss 1980, Stoiber 2002 - and twice they have failed. 

His place is in Bavaria, Söder emphasizes all too often and all too often these days.

In interviews, Söder last said the sentence that as Prime Minister and CSU boss you were "pushed out".

Sometimes he also refers to Edmund Stoiber, whose candidacy for chancellor he, Söder, viewed critically at the time.

And now?

Let's put it this way: Söder would probably (would like to) make the chancellor candidate.

After all, the chances of a (black-green) CSU chancellorship in 2021 are perhaps better than ever before: There is a potential coalition partner (unlike in 1980) and a government majority is likely (unlike in 2002). 

In contrast to Strauss and Stoiber, Söder does not radiate that he is so necessarily pushed into federal politics.

Means: He would have to be called by the sister party CDU.

If so, the union formation would be more closed from the start than if Söder had to prevail against a CDU chairman beforehand.

It always remains exciting with the CSU.

By the way, soon after the party was founded, the US allies had unmasked the CSU's recipe for success after spying on its meetings.

One report states that the CSU is "a feast for all political gourmets", that it can be "neither measured nor understood by normal party standards".

The CSU pursues a "policy of practical instant solutions".

According to the US reporter, the Bavarians would “show a benevolent understanding of this swing policy”.

So what would we be without the CSU?

My colleague Stefan Kuzmany, a staunch Bavarian and a staunch CSU non-voter, is also wondering that today.

"The CSU has something," says Stefan.

It is "impossible to escape in Bavaria: you are either inside or outside, but always in relation to it. It is the fixed point of political consciousness."

Read his congratulatory letter here on SPIEGEL.de during the day.

  • Markus Söder and the lust for power: Child minded, muscular - Chancellor?

Political mood test

In North Rhine-Westphalia, more than 14 million people are called on to vote in local elections on Sunday.

Elections are held in 24 independent cities, 31 districts and 396 municipalities.

A total of 20,000 municipal mandates are to be awarded in the most populous federal state.

Icon: enlarge

Armin Laschet

Photo: Odd Andersen / AFP

The elections are a political test of the mood in several respects: It is the first ballot since the beginning of the corona pandemic - apart from the Bavarian local elections in March, we didn't really know what was in store for us epidemiologically.

Will criticism of the corona measures be felt in the election results?

Or will the government parties in the federal and state levels be supported?

Or does the crisis play a lesser role than assumed?

Then the second mood test, which is part of the election: NRW Prime Minister Armin Laschet is of course not up for election, but the result for his CDU will rub off on him too.

"That could give him momentum in the struggle for party chairmanship and candidate for chancellor. Or it could become a mortgage," writes my colleague Florian Gathmann.

In the last local election - at that time the country was still ruled by Red-Green - the CDU was able to get 37.5 percent, the SPD followed with 31.4 percent.

The Greens achieved just under 12 percent - that's little by today's standards.

You should probably gain.

  • Armin Laschet and the NRW municipal elections: Winning is a must

The Navalny case and the Putin system

In the case of the poisoned Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny, indications of involvement by Russian government agencies are becoming more and more concrete. 

According to SPIEGEL information, the toxin used against Navalny is said to be a further development of previously known compositions of the nerve agent Novichok.

Icon: enlarge

Alexei Navalny

Photo: Anton Novoderezhkin / imago images / ITAR-TASS

For the German government, the new composition is the most important indication that Vladimir Putin might be involved in the case, writes a large team of SPIEGEL editors in the story about German-Russian relations after Navalny, which is well worth reading: "The more complex, The newer and rarer the chemical composition of the poison, the more likely it is that one can only get hold of it with the help of the Russian state apparatus, they say. "

The Kremlin denies having anything to do with the attempted murder.

And then there is this detail that the German authorities reconstructed during their investigations.

It shows the cold calculation and the brutality of this crime.

According to the reconstruction, the aim of the perpetrators was that Navalny should die on board the plane in which he was sitting when the convulsions began.

Only the emergency landing of the pilot and the subsequent treatment with an antidote probably saved Navalny's life. 

  • The Navalny and Nord Stream 2 case: can you punish Russia without harming yourself?

Winner of the day ...

... we are all together.

We are facing a beautiful September weekend with sunshine and sometimes up to 30 degrees Celsius.

The latest news from the night

  • Bahrain wants to establish diplomatic relations with Israel:

    After the United Arab Emirates, the Kingdom of Bahrain also wants to normalize its relations with Israel.

    US President Donald Trump spoke of "another historic breakthrough".

  • Zverev is fighting his way into the final of the US Open

    : For the first time since 1994, a German tennis player is in the final of the US Open.

    Hamburg's Alexander Zverev reached the first Grand Slam final of his career - and that after a 2-0 set deficit.

  • Trump and Biden commemorate the 9/11 victims:

    19 years after the attacks of September 11, 2001, both US President Donald Trump and his challenger Joe Biden visit places of terror.

    What role does the election campaign play on Remembrance Day?

The SPIEGEL + recommendations for today

  • Hanau, Mönchengladbach, Lübeck, Karlsruhe: We are buying back our city

  • Fact check on false positive corona diagnoses: The myth of the unreliable PCR test

  • Boris Johnson and the EU: This is how the Brexit talks could still end successfully

  • Savings trick with voluntary payments: You can retire earlier without any deductions

I wish you a nice weekend.

Your Sebastian Fischer

Source: spiegel

All news articles on 2020-09-12

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