The situation in the morning: is Armin Laschet catching up?

2021-09-17T03:48:22.511Z

A touch of the "House of Cards" in Germany. Ischgl in the dock. And communists as bearers of hope. That is the situation on Friday.

Today it's about a touch of the "House of Cards" in Germany.

To an Austrian party region in the dock.

And about communists as bearers of hope.

Is Laschet catching up?

Nine days left and there will be a result.

Then this pretty stupid election campaign is finally over.

Cracked because it was shaped by states of excitement, which in turn were generated by trivialities.

But it is also true

that the race

has not been

so open and exciting for a long time just a week before the general election.

Unlike all the Angela Merkel coronation masses of the past, this federal election feels like a lively and competitive democracy.

Much points to a head-to-head race for first place.

The SPD was only a few percentage points ahead of the Union.

According to the ARD Germany trend, Armin Laschet has now been able to reduce the gap to Olaf Scholz by one percentage point.

That is not enough to generate the momentum for the final spurt, which is so important for election campaigns.

But it is enough to keep fighting.

Armin Laschet, Olaf Scholz and Annalena Baerbock will continue to roam the marketplaces of the republic today.

Experience has shown that such appearances do not change anything in the election results.

But they are good for the candidates' nerves.

There is something to be done.

CDU hope Wiebke Winter: How a 25-year-old should save Laschet's election campaign

Whispers of comrades

On Thursday last week, even this permanently excited election campaign reached a new peak of excitement:

"Raid in the Ministry of Finance,"

was the headline in SPIEGEL.

Investigators from the Osnabrück public prosecutor's office searched the finance ministry of SPD chancellor candidate Olaf Scholz, and they also made presentations to the SPD-led Federal Ministry of Justice.

There is a complicated case behind this.

It is about a previously largely unknown authority from Scholz's empire: the Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU), a customs department that is supposed to fight against money laundering.

There have been complaints for some time that she is not doing her job properly.

And help ensure that Germany is considered a paradise for money launderers.

What makes it explosive is the timing of the raid, so close to the election.

And so the Union and the SPD are fighting for the authority to interpret this process.

In the SPD one refers to the acting persons.

The head of the public prosecutor's office, for example, is a CDU man.

So it was obvious that there was an intrigue against Scholz.

In the CDU one seizes the opportunity to question the suitability of Scholz as Chancellor.

It is not the first affair that Scholz creates: Already in the Wirecard case and in the Cum-Ex scandal, he made a bad figure.

The thesis of the conservative plot against Comrade Scholz cannot be proven.

The judiciary in Lower Saxony indignantly rejects them.

It is about normal processes in the context of a preliminary investigation.

And so there is probably nothing more than whispering from comrades.

Possibly with a little aftertaste.

Money laundering raid in the Ministry of Finance: "Are the Germans a nation of financial tricksters, Mr. Schick?"

Organized irresponsibility

Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier will present the

Federal Cross of Merit to Brigadier General Jens Arlt in

Bellevue Palace today

Arlt was responsible for the evacuation operation of the German armed forces in Kabul.

The award also goes to the many other soldiers who were involved.

Your commitment in the last few days of Kabul has at least somewhat alleviated the consequences of a major policy failure.

They made sure that a few thousand people could still be saved from the Taliban - despite the great risks and chaotic conditions at Kabul airport.

Without this courage and this commitment in the last few meters, the German balance sheet in Afghanistan would be even more disgraceful.

But it remains correct: Thousands of people could have been brought out of the country in the weeks and months before without hectic and chaos.

However, this failed because of the will, the organizational talent and often bureaucratic hurdles.

How German politicians dealt with the tens of thousands of people whose services they had used for years and whose trust they had enjoyed cannot be beaten in terms of irresponsibility.

Steady evacuation from Afghanistan: "I don't know who is holding us back"

In the pasture, there was a sin

A sensational process begins this morning at 10 a.m. in the ballroom of the Vienna Palace of Justice:

the widow of a journalist who is allegedly infected with the coronavirus in the Tyrolean ski resort of Ischgl is suing the Republic of Austria

for damages in the amount of more than 100,000 euros. According to the plaintiff's brief, the lives of thousands of vacationers in the après-ski Mecca of Ischgl have been put at risk through "negligence" and pressure from lobbyists from the hotel and cable car sectors. Dozens of other lawsuits are to follow, and those affected from Germany, Great Britain and the Netherlands are queuing up.

My colleague Walter Mayr, a correspondent in Vienna, has been in contact with the plaintiff for more than a year and has reported several times on the tragic consequences of the corona cluster in Ischgl.

He doubts, however, that it will be possible to name those politically responsible for the disaster in Ischgl, let alone hold them accountable: “First of all, it is difficult to provide watertight evidence of their misconduct.

Second, a first guilty verdict would result in an avalanche of claims worth millions against the state. "

Ischgl trial against the Republic of Austria: who is responsible for the corona infections of thousands of vacationers?

Winner of the day ...

... are (possibly) the

communists in Russia

Starting today, a new parliament will be elected in Russia - an important test of sentiment for Vladimir Putin's power apparatus.

The ruling party United Russia is more unpopular than it has been in a long time.

And of all people, the Communists of the KPRF, who have so far been tame and loyal to Putin's presidential administration, could now benefit from the dissatisfaction.

Nonetheless, it seems certain that United Russia will regain a majority in parliament. For the first time, the Kremlin allows voting for three days until Sunday evening, so plenty of time for manipulation. In any case, the long time it takes to cast votes makes it very difficult for the election observers to monitor them completely. Electronic voting is also being tried out in seven regions, including the capital Moscow. Control will hardly be possible in this way.

In addition, fellow campaigners of the imprisoned Kremlin critic Alexej Navalny and other members of the opposition were not even allowed to vote. That also helps the communists. According to a new survey, the KPRF was last at just under 17 percent. It could also benefit from the “Smart Voting” recommendation by Alexei Navalny's team: It advises protest voters in almost 140 constituencies of the country to vote for the Communist candidates in order to prevent representatives from United Russia.

My colleague Christina Hebel accompanied one of these communists during the election campaign.

Bair Zyrenow from the Siberian Buryatia on Lake Baikal has a good chance of entering the Duma.

The 35-year-old is also particularly uncomfortable for the ruling party because he belongs to a group of up-and-coming communists who attack United Russia both violently and fearlessly - in public.

Nor could it necessarily be foreseen that hope for a time after Vladimir Putin would one day be linked to the communists.

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