Triell of last chances
There is no escape.
This weekend they are swarming out again, the candidates of the parties, in pedestrian zones, on marketplaces, in front of shopping centers, in hospitals and beer gardens.
Germany is going to the final of the election - eight more days, then it will be settled.
Who can hope for a last minute swing?
Can Armin Laschet and the Union still prevent the victory of the Social Democrats around Olaf Scholz, a victory that was unimaginable a few weeks ago?
Can the Greens, who were still dreaming of the Chancellery in the spring, intervene in the race for power again?
The first question cannot actually be answered yet.
The second one more: Annalena Baerbock will probably have to be content with third place.
How it came about that Baerbock and the Greens may have missed a historic opportunity, that was analyzed by a team of colleagues for the SPIEGEL cover story (the text can be found here). In it they also state
that since the survey crashed, since it has been clear that nothing will come of the green revolution, Baerbock seems almost liberated, “as if the dream of being at the top had slowed it down rather than stimulated it.
As if it was more of a nightmare. "
Without the burden of the nightmare, the Green Chancellor candidate can now go into
the third and final TV triall
on Sunday evening
, this time on Sat.1, ProSieben and Kabel Eins. Do I hear you moan? I can understand, part one and two didn't exactly make you want more. For Baerbock and of course also for the Union rival Laschet, the debate still offers
one of the last opportunities to score in front of a large audience and to put the current favorite Scholz in distress
.
Remarkable: One of the Triell presenters is Claudia von Brauchitsch, who has not only worked for RTL, N24 and Sat.1 in her life - but also for the CDU's own internet station CDU TV.
She also moderated party events for the Christian Democrats.
The competition camps find the cast not particularly happy, and you don't have to be a fan of the SPD and the Greens to share this feeling.
The SPIEGEL cover story: This is how the Greens botched their chance at the Chancellery
Nice on the outside, radical on the inside
In the polls shortly before the general election, the AfD is stable at around 11 percent.
Still too much for a partly right-wing extremist party, but it was more than that.
Before the pandemic hit the country, the opinion polls saw the AfD at 14 or 15 percent, significantly more than the 12.6 percent in the last federal election.
Since the virus has ruled politics, the right has been fighting for attention.
For a long time, the AfD found it difficult to find a common stance on the anti-corona measures, migration policy no longer played a role - the party simply lacks an issue.
It cannot even benefit from the dramatic consumption of the Union.
In the election campaign, people have been trying for weeks to serve the supposed longing for a "normal" Germany that allegedly deals too much with things like climate protection and diversity.
Only:
Nothing is normal about the AfD.
On the contrary.
Quite a few functionaries, elected officials and members do not want a normal Germany;
they want to overturn the democratic system of this country
.
And even the top candidates of the AfD, Alice Weidel and Tino Chrupalla, may smile nicely and harmlessly from the election posters, in truth they are firmly anchored in the völkisch-nationalist wing of the party.
My colleague Ann-Katrin Müller and my colleague Veit Medick watched Weidel and Chrupalla during the election campaign.
In their portrait they reveal the radical AfD core behind the friendly facade.
AfD top duo Weidel and Chrupalla: The attempt at a great deception
Will vaccination week be a flop?
Jens Spahn wanted to ignite the vaccination turbo before autumn: The Minister of Health called a week of action in which countries, cities and municipalities should convince those who have been reluctant to pick up the Piks against a Covid 19 disease.
The Robert Koch Institute had calculated that five million fully vaccinated people still need it to achieve a vaccination rate of 75 percent for those over 12 and get through the Corona winter well.
But all the, as the saying goes, low-threshold offers don't seem to be of much use so far.
Free kebab, vouchers, the syringe at the supermarket checkout - there is no shortage of ideas.
They only existed before vaccination week, which is now threatening to flop.
In any case, the vaccination rate has hardly increased in the past few days.
Do people really not want to be vaccinated?
Experts estimate that only ten percent of the population are real hardcore vaccine opponents.
Then there are the vaccinators who simply haven't made it or were simply too comfortable.
And there are the doubters who do not generally reject a vaccination, but are afraid of side effects, for example, or long-term effects.
The latter would have to be done more seriously than offering them a free bratwurst. This is about education.
My colleagues Veronika Hackenbroch and Milena Hassenkamp as well as my colleague Claus Hecking explain what this can look like and why a campaign by the federal government is rather counterproductive here:
Action week of the federal government: Who are the vaccine refusers and how can you contact them?
Loser of the day ...
... is Andreas Mattfeldt.
Mattfeldt is a member of the Bundestag for the CDU.
And he is the managing director of a Hohenzollern company in the small town of Plön in Schleswig-Holstein.
As such, in July 2020 he advised the Plön City Council to apply for federal funding for an island in the Großer Plöner See belonging to the aristocratic family.
Practically, Mattfeldt also sits on the budget committee of the Bundestag, which approves the money.
However, he
did not report
the
conflict of interest
either to the committee or to the President of the Bundestag.
In the decisive vote on the funding for the Plöner Prinzenbad, which is run by the city but belongs to the Hohenzollern family, Mattfeldt was even rapporteur for the committee for projects within the framework of the program "Adaptation of urban spaces to climate change".
He voted in favor of the template, in which the Prinzenbad project on Hohenzollern Island was also listed.
There should be 249,000 euros in state dough for a “green roof at the Prinzeninsel bathing area in Plön”.
The money didn't flow in the end - but there were structural reasons for that.
Read the full story here:
Conflicts of interest of a member of parliament: the CDU politician, his noble friend and the € 249,000 vote
The latest news from the night
US panel of experts against corona boosters for everyone aged 16 and over
The protection diminishes over time - so a refresher for everyone?
The US Medicines Agency says no, only in exceptional cases.
There was a lack of data, especially for younger people.
Dispute over submarine deal: France calls back ambassadors from the USA and Australia
The dispute over the submarine deal between the United States and Australia is escalating.
As the French Foreign Minister Le Drian announced, the ambassadors are to be withdrawn from both countries.
Bundesliga debutant Ekkelenkamp saves Hertha BSC
Hertha coach Dardai did not expect "a miracle kick" that evening against the promoted Fürth.
Rather, he prophesied a "work victory" - and was proven right.
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AfD election campaign with Weidel and Chrupalla: The attempt at a great deception
Because of business-friendly: Entrepreneurs feel thwarted by the FDP
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It's brutal "
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I wish you a wonderful weekend.
Heartfelt,
Your Philipp Wittrock
