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NRW Prime Minister Armin Laschet (CDU) in the crisis area
Photo: State of North Rhine-Westphalia / Marcel Kusch
Is this text forbidden?
Is he early?
Rescue workers are still looking for dozens of missing people in the flooded areas, and their relatives fear for their lives.
Others have a terrible certainty.
At the time this text was published, the authorities counted 133 victims of the flood disaster that hit North Rhine-Westphalia and Rhineland-Palatinate in the past few days.
Are you allowed to talk about politics in this situation?
One must.
We can donate for those who have lost their livelihood, we can think compassionately of those who mourn, we can be grateful to the helpers and emergency services - but that can't be all.
Because this flood disaster is a consequence of man-made climate change, there can no longer be any doubt.
And therefore it must have political consequences.
Too late and in a polo shirt
Natural disasters like this made politicians great and decided elections in this country. In 1962, the Hamburg Interior Senator at the time gained his reputation as a competent crisis manager during the storm surge, which is one of the reasons why he was later able to convince the country to make him Federal Chancellor. In 2002 Edmund Stoiber wanted to expel Gerhard Schröder from the Chancellery. The fact that he could not succeed was also the result of the flood disaster in East Germany at the time: Schröder quickly presented himself as a crisis chancellor in rubber boots, Edmund Stoiber initially stayed away because he was on vacation. And then appeared in the light blue polo shirt.
In a crisis, a phrase that is often used in political analysis, the hour of the executive strikes.
Anyone who, as a chancellor or prime minister, is in the position to send emergency services, provide emergency aid and distribute medals to deserving rescuers, earns public respect - or contempt if management fails.
No one will ever ask why an elected representative is standing in front of cameras in the crisis area, after all, he or she has been elected to take care of the interests of the citizens and also to help them in an emergency .
The father of the country as a crisis hero
more on the subject
Flood in North Rhine-Westphalia and Rhineland-Palatinate: The weather disaster that changes the election campaign
Press conference: Prime Minister Laschet on the flood disaster in North Rhine-Westphalia
Floods in West Germany: Baerbock travels to the disaster area
Extreme rain events: How climate change is related to floods A guest contribution by Stefan Rahmstorf
The short end would now be: Armin Laschet will gain popularity in this terrible emergency. The NRW state father and candidate for chancellor of the Union is in the center of attention. He expresses his sympathy, he instructs his cabinet to work out emergency aid, he brings things back under control in the country and heals the damage. According to the same logic, his rival, the green candidate Annalena Baerbock, could only lose in this flood. Nobody needs them in rubber boots on site, such an appearance would be a pure PR appointment. She has no office, so no money to distribute and no emergency workers to send out. She has no chance to distinguish herself as a crisis manager.
But this flood is different from that of previous years: no one can dismiss it as an unpredictable freak of nature.
It is the result of our overexploitation with the climate.
And that is why it is important to help immediately on site with rescue workers, with the military, with money.
But it is just as important to finally translate the knowledge of man-made climate change into state actions that cannot rule out such catastrophes, but at least make a serious attempt to prevent them from becoming normal in the future.
In the short term or in principle against climate change
The voters of this country are faced with this decision after the flood disaster and before the federal election: On the one hand, the Union, whose candidate Laschet is quickly and, as it seems, competent to deal with the emergency situation in North Rhine-Westphalia - but none of which, according to his own words Far-reaching climate policy is to be expected: "Because this is a day like this, you don't change politics." On the other hand, the Greens, whose candidate Baerbock does not coordinate rescue workers on site, but whose party wants to fight the climate catastrophe as hard as no other - and not "because it is such a day now", but because she has known for a long time that otherwise there will be more and more days when the water will rise.
This election campaign can no longer be about stolen quotes and poster actresses costumed as nurses - it is about the question of whether the consequences of climate change are short-term or whether this change must be combated in principle. We'll probably have to do both at the same time. And so we have to ask: Does Annalena Baerbock also fit in rubber boots, would she be a good crisis manager? And what does Armin Laschet do when he has taken off his rubber boots - does he have the foresight to make long-term, even unpopular decisions for the climate? We have a choice.
