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FDP top candidate Christian Lindner in the federal election campaign in Bavaria, August 2021
Photo: Angelika Warmuth / dpa
Christian Lindner is on the way.
Baltic Sea coast, Bavaria, at the weekend he opened the parallel FDP election campaign for the Berlin House of Representatives in the capital.
The goal of the FDP top candidate is clear: a strong result, if possible in two digits, with which the Free Democrats get into government this time, preferably alongside a CDU chancellor.
The FDP leader has repeatedly announced in recent weeks that the mandate to form a government will "almost certainly" go to their candidate for Chancellor Armin Laschet.
It could be a daring prediction.
The closer the election campaign to September 26th, the more the Union weakens.
Sure, it does not yet look as if Laschet and with him the CDU / CSU will lose first place in the favor of the voters.
But it's getting tighter. Last week, in a survey, a red-red-green coalition was even possible - at least in theory. A scenario that Lindner could even accommodate despite the associated weakness of his preferential coalition partner: Again and again he has urged Green Chancellor candidate Annalena Baerbock to publicly declare whether she would also be elected chancellor with the help of the Left Party. With rising values for the SPD, Lindner should soon extend the warning to the SPD chancellor candidate Olaf Scholz.
The situation around six weeks before the election is more confusing than it has been for a long time.
The SPD is catching up, now with 20 percent in an Insa survey for the first time in a year before the Greens, who come to 18 percent.
SPD Chancellor candidate Olaf Scholz, who achieved the highest personality scores among all candidates and recently increased significantly, sparked speculation about a traffic light coalition in a recent interview with SPIEGEL.
"There is a long social-liberal tradition in Germany," he recalled the time under Chancellors Willy Brandt and Helmut Schmidt.
"Both ruled with the FDP, and that time was good for the country," said Scholz.
You could even become chancellor in second place.
"That has happened several times in the history of the Federal Republic of Germany," said Scholz.
Lindner's room for maneuver is restricted
But the traffic light, which Lindner does not exclude like a Jamaica coalition (Union, Greens, FDP) and a German coalition (Union, SPD, FDP), is viewed with skepticism in large parts of the FDP - if in such a constellation the party would be possible smaller partner on the side of two parties whose election manifesto is oriented to the left with planned tax increases.
But Lindner has ruled out tax increases - which narrows his room for maneuver.
Laschet, with whom Lindner negotiated the black-yellow coalition in North Rhine-Westphalia in 2017, remains the preferred partner of the FDP chairman.
But its decreasing personal popularity ratings, the dissatisfaction in the Union with its own candidate are of course carefully observed in the FDP leadership.
“The Union still seems to have a problem with its candidate for chancellor. If 70 percent of their supporters would like Markus Söder to be Chancellor candidate instead of Armin Laschet and more than half even speak out in favor of a swap, something goes wrong, ”FDP General Secretary Volker Wissing stated on Sunday to SPIEGEL. A ruling party like the Union must stop discussing with itself, he says.
When it comes to the hopeful outlook for September 26th, Wissing refers to a factor that played a role in every federal election campaign: Chancellors would not be directly elected. Laschet is prime minister of the largest federal state and leads the black-yellow coalition there silently and successfully. “He showed stamina and endured a lot. I trust him to be able to overcome his current weakness. But it would be good if he and the entire party switched off the standby mode, «warns Wissing.
Now you don't have to take the FDP's concerns too seriously. Laschet's problem is not one that directly affects the FDP; each party initially campaigns for itself. Nevertheless, the situation of the friendly competitor is one that the strategists of the FDP cannot leave indifferent: If Jamaica or the traffic light should ultimately be possible as equal government variants, it would not only depend on the Greens, but also on the FDP who moves into the Chancellery : Laschet or - with an SPD lying in front of the Greens - in the end still Scholz? What if the SPD and the Greens go far in terms of content?
The FDP does not speak about such questions in public.
It doesn't help, it is said, the voters are not interested in such questions.
And if it does?
The FDP parliamentary group deputy in the Bundestag, Michael Theurer, is currently certain: "In the end, Mr. Laschet will be ahead of the game, also because Mr. Scholz and Mrs. Baerbock do not rule out a shift to the left, which many people and the economy are afraid of," he says on Sunday the SPIEGEL.
It is a tone that could possibly play an important role in the final sprint - with the FDP, certainly also in the Union.
Depending on how the survey results develop.
A left alliance, says Theurer, is bad for Germany, the SPD and the Greens have to "finally rule out this constellation in a binding manner."
High time to turn things around
But how caught up in warnings of a red-red-green coalition about Laschet's weakness?
Theurer, who, as Baden-Württemberg's FDP regional leader, would have liked to have concluded a traffic light coalition in his home country in the spring, analyzes the previous appearances of the CDU chancellor candidate with an ironic look: "Laschet once said that he always picks a tie when it comes to football." What, as a head of government, works as a compensatory way of winning, can be interpreted in the election campaign as "a lack of will to win".
Laschet, says Theurer, must therefore "avoid further mistakes," but the "cross-shots, erratic change of position and the know-it-all" of CSU chairman Markus Söder are not helpful either.
During these days the FDP has repeatedly heard that Laschet proved that he could do it four years ago in the North Rhine-Westphalian election campaign.
But how far do such comparisons carry?
In 2017, Laschet stood out of the opposition against a red-green state government that made mistakes and appeared exhausted.
Now he has to keep his CDU and CSU in the federal government - possibly with the help of the FDP.
When he looks at the current election campaign, the FDP executive committee member Theurer recalls that Laschet who proved in North Rhine-Westphalia in 2017 "that he can turn things around in an election campaign."
For that, Theurer adds, "it is now high time".