Reverse the curve of the polls and stave off an announced defeat: two weeks before the elections, the heir of Angela Merkel, the unpopular Armin Laschet, unleashed his blows this Sunday against his main opponent, the Social Democrat Olaf Scholz.
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From the scarecrow of a coalition with the far left to the specter of court cases, Armin Laschet attacked his main opponent head on, sparing the ecologist Annalena Baerbock during a debate between the three main candidates and thus transforming the "
Triell
" prized by the Germans in a duel. Distanced by the Social Democrats from Olaf Scholz, who has become the favorite in the race for the chancellery, Armin Laschet does not have much time to stop the fall of the conservatives of the CDU-CSU, who have fallen to a historically low level in the opinion polls, around 20%.
At the foot of the wall, Armin Laschet put into practice during this one and a half hour debate on public channels the advice of the conservative hierarchs: to shake up Olaf Scholz, the experienced but lacking charisma Minister of Finance of the Merkel government.
Armin Laschet's first angle of attack, the possible coalition that Olaf Scholz could form with environmentalists and especially the extreme left Die Linke, a scarecrow very popular with the conservative camp.
"
If that gives you a majority, you will form a coalition with the left!"
», Launched Armin Laschet to the social democrat centrist tendency.
"
Serious problem
"
Olaf Scholz, without formally ruling out such a coalition, set his conditions: "
Anyone who wants to govern in Germany must clearly state that NATO is important for our security
", he asserted in the direction of the extreme left, which calls into question the transatlantic relationship on which Germany has been betting since 1945. Armin Laschet has excluded him from any discussion with the far-right AfD party, in fifth position in the polls but still influential in the regions of the former GDR.
Another offensive led by Armin Laschet, business.
He seized on searches carried out on September 9 in a federal agency against money laundering, under the supervision of Olaf Scholz, to attack his opponent.
"
If my Minister of Finance worked like you, we would have a serious problem,
" said Armin Laschet to Olaf Scholz, whose services are suspected of not having transmitted to justice suspicions of laundering of several million euros.
He also castigated the reservations expressed by Olaf Scholz on this investigation by the Osnabrück prosecutor's office: "
This is what the populists are doing in other countries
".
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Olaf Scholz, described this week by the weekly
Der Spiegel
as "
the embodiment of boredom in politics
", briefly broke with his civilized tone to castigate "
false accusations
" of his opponent. Armin Laschet found himself in difficulty when, pressed by the other two candidates on the subject of climate policy, he had to distance himself from Angela Merkel, recalling that he is "
not a member of the government
".
Annalena Baerbock, whose party is in third place in the polls, sent back her rivals back to back, while conservatives and social democrats have governed together for seven years, embodying, according to her, "
the past
".
Will these attacks be enough to convince the undecided and to re-mobilize a Christian-democratic camp in power for 16 years?
Merkel in the arena
As in the first "
triell
", Olaf Scholz was judged this Sunday "
the most convincing
" (39%), clearly ahead of his two competitors (25%), according to the institute Infratest Dimad. Weakened as never since the Second World War, the conservative camp, favorite until July, now seems to be traversed by a wind of panic. The Christian Democrats have since been weighed down by the errors of their candidate, in particular a giggle captured by the cameras on the sidelines of a solemn speech by the President of the Republic on an area affected by the summer floods.
Difficult to prepare for her succession and discreet until this summer, Chancellor Merkel herself had to resolve to descend into the arena. This week, she did not hesitate to use the platform of the Bundestag to praise the qualities of the Christian Democratic candidate. The German leader does not mince words and points to "
the enormous difference
" that would exist between her and Olaf Scholz, who leads a campaign without glare or false note and goes so far as to imitate, including in the position of the hands, an Angela Still popular Merkel.