Does the Merkel era end in tears for the Union like the Kohl era?
The warning signs are increasing.
A comment by Merkur editor-in-chief Georg Anastasiadis.
Munich - Löw goes.
Merkel * is leaving.
A touch of farewell blows through the republic, since yesterday a little more.
And in the Union they are beginning to suspect that the cold draft could catch them too: In addition to the vaccination failure and the weak action of important Union Federal Ministers, the CDU * and CSU * at the most unfortunate point in time are joined by a crisis of confidence, triggered by a - not yet fully comprehensible - Number of MPs who have enriched themselves from the plight of the people.
This is a bad reminder of the late phase of the Kohl era.
At that time, too, a perception that the government did not have the problems under control - Germany was considered the sick man of Europe with over four million unemployed - was associated with the feeling of weariness at the end of a 16-year reign that turned out to be too long (one year later in Should sink into the quagmire of the donation affair).
By the way: For Berti Vogts, then long-time national football coach, the turn of the century ended in 1998, as it was for Chancellor Helmut Kohl.
Corona crisis brings CDU and CSU to the limit: Will 2021 end like 1998?
Is history repeating itself?
2021 does not have to end like 1998. But the growing panic in the Union shows how dangerous the poisonous brew that is being mixed is considered to be.
Even media like “
Spiegel
”, which accompanied Merkel's tenure * in a friendly manner, suddenly write of a “depraved chancellorship”.
In the corona crisis *, the previously vaunted "steady hand" has become a synonym for unimaginative administration, for a country frozen in bureaucracy that does not find the strength and courage to react to the virus catastrophe as grippingly as some representatives of the people are looking at their personal finances were doing.
The CDU is likely to receive the first receipt next Sunday in the state elections in Baden-Württemberg and Rhineland-Palatinate.
If, in addition to Mainz, a traffic light coalition will also rule in Stuttgart in the future without the participation of the CDU, the Greens, SPD * and FDP * could easily make it a model for Berlin.
You can hardly blame the new CDU leader Armin Laschet for that.
Nevertheless, the risk of a loss of power, which has suddenly become real, should also cause movement in the struggle over the K question: Laschet is the seeded candidate - but only as long as the Union trusts him to win and does not call for a Munich rescuer in an emergency.
* Merkur.de is an offer from IPPEN.MEDIA.