Shortly before two state elections, the Union is slipping into a crisis that could get worse.
How can the CDU and CSU recover after allegations of corruption and a low poll?
Berlin - In the crucial election year of 2021, of all things, the Union parties are in one of the biggest homemade crises in recent years.
In September, the Union will run for the first time since 2005 without Angela Merkel as the top candidate in the federal elections and want to remain in government with a new candidate for Chancellor.
In the past few months it looked for a long time as if the crisis management of the CDU and CSU would further increase the approval of the government in the population and barely give the opposition parties the opportunity to profile themselves and their own policies.
But this trend now seems to have more than stalled.
Union in crisis in election year?
Criticism of the corona management is getting louder
The main reason for this are the events of the past few weeks.
After a level-headed and successful management of the first corona wave, the federal government then made decisions that in retrospect turned out to be at least questionable.
The breakwater shutdown last November almost completely fizzled out and threw the Federal Republic into a lockdown that has persisted since then, which above all poses a significant threat to restaurants and retailers.
Even on the way out of the lockdown and the pandemic, the government is only conditionally stringent in its actions.
When it comes to vaccine procurement and vaccination, Germany lags behind in an international comparison.
There are also clear deficits in the widespread use of rapid antigen tests.
As if these developments weren't enough of a burden for the Union, the parties now also have to deal with internal problems.
As has become known in the past few days, suspicions of corruption have been confirmed against three Union politicians.
Two politicians had probably made personal profit from the corona pandemic.
Mask affair becomes a threat to CDU and CSU - Habeck speaks of a "systematic problem"
The CDU member of the Bundestag Nikolas Löbel had collected around 250,000 euros for the procurement of protective masks last year.
The CSU politician Georg Nüßlein is also said to have enriched himself in the context of contracts on protective masks.
The public prosecutor's office is investigating him on suspicion of bribery and tax evasion.
The third member of the group is CDU member of the Bundestag, Axel Fischer, who is said to have lobbied against monetary payments for the Azerbaijani regime.
While the Union speaks of individual cases and "black sheep" in the party, Green Party leader Robert Habeck sees a fundamental problem in the party organization.
“Neither party is immune from individual cases of personal missteps.
But in the case of the Union, a lot indicates that the problem is structural and systematic, ”the 51-year-old told the dpa news agency.
"This reveals a crude understanding of power among the CDU and CSU, which damages trust in the integrity of the democratic institutions," continues Habeck and demands full transparency from the Union when investigating the incidents.
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Armin Laschet and Markus Söder lead the two parties.
© Guido Kirchner / dpa
Söder with clear words against Nüßlein - "Incompatible with the fundamental values of the Union"
But there are also clear words from the representatives of the CDU and CSU in relation to the “mask scandal”.
CDU party leader Armin Laschet told
Südkurier
on Sunday
: “Anyone who, as a representative of the people, tries to earn money for themselves personally in this crisis must leave parliament immediately.” Markus Söder, the party chairman of the sister party CSU, also took a clear position.
“It cannot be tolerated when representatives of the people turn the crisis into business.
That is incompatible with the fundamental values of the Union, ”wrote the Bavarian Prime Minister on Twitter on Sunday.
However, there were initially no decisive consequences.
Löbel and Nüßlein have meanwhile left the parliamentary group of the Union, but initially did not want to give up their mandates - a decision that is entirely in the hands of the MPs themselves.
On Monday morning, however, Löbel announced that he would also resign his parliamentary mandate immediately in order to avert further damage to his party.
Baden-Württemberg's CDU in the survey low: six percentage points lost in three months
The Union could receive the first receipts for the latest events on Sunday in the state elections in Baden-Württemberg and Rhineland-Palatinate.
In a survey by infratest dimap at the end of December, the CDU in Baden-Württemberg came to 30 percent, but fell to 24 percent in a survey organized on Friday by the Elections Research Group.
A loss of six percentage points in three months.
CDU worried about the state elections - a terrible scenario of the traffic light coalition
In Baden-Württemberg and also in Rhineland-Palatinate, according to the latest polls, the possibility of a traffic light coalition of the SPD, Greens and FDP is in the room.
A constellation that could then possibly also offer itself in the federal election in September.
Here too, the surveys show a development that is worrying for the Union.
According to the latest Kantar poll, the Union only got 32 percent of the vote.
The worst result for the CDU / CSU since the beginning of the Corona crisis and almost one percentage point less than the result of the last federal election.
The opposition parties in particular could benefit from the crisis in the Union.
So also commented a member of the CSU parliamentary group with a view to the AfD to the
mirror
.
"That's a penalty that you shoot into the goal of your opponent yourself."
(Fd)
List of rubric lists: © Guido Kirchner / dpa
