TV duel before the state elections in Baden-Württemberg on Sunday: On Thursday evening, the top candidates will discuss the most important political issues in the state in SWR.
Stuttgart - Shortly before the state elections in Baden-Württemberg, the top candidates of the parties will meet on Thursday evening in Stuttgart for a TV duel.
A total of six candidates will discuss
state politics for one and a half hours
in the
SWR
at 8.15 p.m.
and explain their various positions.
The central topic will of course be the corona pandemic and its socio-political consequences.
TV duel before state elections in Baden-Württemberg: who is there?
Greens:
Prime Minister Winfried Kretschmann
CDU:
Minister of Education Susanne Eisenmann
AfD:
top candidate Bernd Gögel
SPD:
parliamentary group and party chairman Andreas Stoch
FDP:
parliamentary group leader Hans-Ulrich Rülke
Left:
State spokeswoman Sahra Mirow
At the beginning of March there was a TV duel between the top candidates of the Greens and the CDU.
Susanne Eisenmann accused Prime Minister Winfried Kretschmann, among other things, of only having found out about an "impulse paper" from the head of state for the Corona summit from the newspaper.
The Green justified himself a few hours later: “It was sent to her by email.
There can be no doubt about that, ”said Kretschmann.
"I would like to campaign about the future of this country and not about whether someone has received an email."
When a new state parliament is elected on Sunday, Kretschmann will be talking about his third term in office.
He has governed Baden-Württemberg since 2011 - initially with the SPD and since 2016 with the CDU as a junior partner.
The CDU around challenger Susanne Eisenmann, currently Minister of Culture in the green-black cabinet, is up to eleven percentage points behind the Greens, according to surveys.
TV duel before state elections in Baden-Württemberg: Corona crisis shapes the election campaign
A good 7.7 million eligible voters are called for the state election under Corona conditions.
Due to the pandemic regulations, a high percentage of absentee votes is expected.
The crisis also overshadowed the election campaign.
The parties promoted their goals primarily through video formats and social media.
The measures against the pandemic were also repeatedly included in the election campaign - for example when Eisenmann called for elementary schools and daycare centers to be opened "regardless of the incidence" and Kretschmann rejected this initiative.
Further controversial issues between the parties are structural change in the automotive industry and the creation of affordable housing, especially in cities.
Most recently, the Union's mask affair caused a stir and made the CDU's election campaign more difficult.
Their top candidate Eisenmann criticized her party friend Nikolas Löbel and the CSU Bundestag member Georg Nüßlein.
It is “out of the question” to “enrich oneself personally” in a crisis.
TV duel before state elections in Baden-Württemberg: No new state parliament composition expected
21 parties are campaigning in 70 constituencies for entry into the state parliament.
According to the current polls, the old parties in parliament will also be the new ones.
In 2016, the CDU came in second with 27 percent, behind the Greens with 30.3 percent.
The AfD moved into the state parliament as the strongest opposition faction with 15.1 percent, but lost this status after several exits and exclusions of group members.
The SPD came up with a historically bad result of 12.7 percent, the FDP reached 8.3 percent.
Video: Baden-Württemberg's Prime Minister Winfried Kretschmann has a third term in office
According to the latest polls, the Greens are currently between 32 and 35 percent, the CDU at 24 to 25 percent.
The SPD lost again compared to 2016 and reached ten percent.
In front of her, the AfD lands with eleven to twelve percent, the Liberals come in with ten to eleven percent.
The left would again fail at the five percent hurdle.
According to surveys, smaller parties such as the Free Voters cannot exert any greater influence on the outcome of the election.
TV duel before state elections in Baden-Württemberg: Comfortable starting point for the Greens
According to the latest polls, Kretschmann could choose his coalition partner after the election.
The Greens could form a coalition with the CDU as a junior partner one more time and form a three-way alliance with the SPD and FDP.
Such an alliance was impossible in 2016 because the Liberals ruled out a coalition with the Greens.
Now, however, only an alliance with the AfD is excluded from all sides.
According to a survey, even green-red is possible.
For the 72-year-old Kretschmann, a third term of office should be the last, as he said several times.
With him, the Greens had become the strongest party in Baden-Württemberg in 2011 as a result of the controversy over Stuttgart 21 and the accident at the Japanese nuclear power plant in Fukushima.
To this day he is the first and only Green Prime Minister in Germany - and that of all things in the once undisputed home country of the CDU.
(fmü / AFP)
