CDU in hibernation?
The CDU and Corona, that is an idle chapter in this pandemic.
Does the following scenario sound familiar to you?
The CDU wants to elect a new chairman, but the escalating corona situation is hindering this project.
Exactly, everything has been there before.
Because of the pandemic, Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer had to remain in office for eleven months after her announced withdrawal before Armin Laschet was elected as the new CDU leader at an online party conference in January 2021.
A
face-to-face convention with 1001 delegates
is now
planned
in Hanover
in January 2022
, and a chairman is to be elected again.
And again Corona threatens to torpedo planning.
Perhaps the country has long been in a shutdown in January.
What to do?
On this Friday morning, the CDU board of directors comes together for a crisis meeting on this matter to decide between different (bad) variants.
Of course, the ladies and gentlemen from the Christian
Union could hold their meeting digitally again
, but then they would have to have the election result confirmed by post by the delegates, as last time.
Or move again
to spring?
Difficult too, because then important state elections are due.
In addition, the chairman is to be determined for the first time by means of a member survey, the vote between Friedrich Merz, Norbert Röttgen and Helge Braun is already underway.
What would that look like: The winner has long been determined at the beginning of the new year, but has to wait months for the confirmation (required by the statutes) by a party congress?
No good solution.
Perhaps the CDU should simply wear out fewer chairmen again in the future.
Party conference in January: Corona endangers the restart of the CDU
Green harmony is over
They still exist, the old wings, conflicts and wing conflicts among the Greens.
Even if some Realos now call themselves reformers, the former Fundis are now called Linke and the Realo management duo of Annalena Baerbock and Robert Habeck have tried in recent years to give the impression that
you don't know any wings anymore, only Greens
.
Passé.
The allocation of posts in the future traffic light coalition has turned into
a real distribution
battle.
The result of last night: The Realos trump the left.
The left parliamentary group leader
Toni Hofreiter
does not get a ministerial
post
, instead the reformer and Stuttgart king of the vote (39.9 percent)
Cem Özdemir is allowed to run
- and becomes agriculture minister.
Bitter for Hofreiter: He just co-negotiated the topics of his dream ministry (transport), which the Greens then lost to the FDP; now he doesn't get another one either. And what about the parliamentary group chairmanship? Should also be perdu. This is how green careers go.
Or, as Baerbock put it in the SPIEGEL interview: "When there are many bright minds, but only a limited number of departments, it's never easy."
And now quickly counting it: With
Baerbock
as Foreign Minister,
Habeck
as Minister for Economic Affairs and Climate Protection and
Özdemir
, the Realos have three posts;
the left with
Anne Spiegel
as Family
Minister
and
Steffi Lemke
as Environment Minister to only two.
Well
Three women face two men.
Small consolation prize for the Fundi wing:
Claudia Roth
becomes Minister of State for Culture and Media.
Reala
Katrin Göring-Eckardt could
take over
her previous job as Bundestag Vice-President, who will
not become Family
Minister
after all.
Now around 125,000 members of the Green Party are to vote on the coalition agreement and the personnel table.
The party left will agree with a large majority, nobody in the leadership of the Greens doubts that.
But maybe one or the other will vent their anger about the occupation - as was a good tradition in earlier votes with the Greens.
Some things don't change.
Personnel is certain: Özdemir is to become Minister of Agriculture - Hofreiter is not there
Fateful Germans
Abroad, they ask themselves what is going on with the Germans in this corona crisis.
The stereotype of the disciplined perfectionist has been proven wrong again, but it does seem to surprise people out there.
My colleague Nicola Abé added this memorable introduction to her corona story from Brazil (!) This week:
Two Brazilians are standing in a small bar in the east of São Paulo and drinking beer.
There is a news program on television.
The subject: the dramatic corona situation in Germany.
The current numbers are displayed.
One of the men asks in disbelief: "In Germany, really?"
The other replies: "Yes, these lunatics cannot be vaccinated."
Could it be that we Germans are waiting for the big bang with weird devotion to fate?
On the military truck convoys in front of the hospitals to remove all the coffins with the dead?
Why don't we act? Because we are a
society without courage
and also without resilience. Without the willingness to take political risks, to do something completely different. We don't build air filters in daycare centers because the little ones could get an electric shock. We don't vaccinate pharmacists because they're not doctors. We are relentlessly testing the (children's) vaccines, although others have long since approved them and the wave threatens to break through.
Our indolence acts as a fire accelerator.
"What still has to happen?" The Federal President recently asked the unvaccinated.
And the health minister assisted: "What still has to happen so that you get it?" Together with RKI boss Lothar Wieler, Jens Spahn will provide information on the infection situation and vaccination development on this Friday morning.
Now, however, this question could also be asked of the incumbent as well as the future government:
What actually still has to happen?
It is already foreseeable that the measures taken so far - such as 3G in buses and trains - will not be sufficient.
Annalena Baerbock said that you have to wait ten days to see the possible effect.
Unfortunately, this also means: wait for more than half a million infections and probably more than 3000 deaths.
How good that it's only nine days from today.
In an interview with SPIEGEL, Baerbock keeps the possibility of a lockdown open: »I do not rule out the need for further steps, possibly more sweeping. That is why it is so important to use the next few days to get an honest picture. ”If necessary, then
“ tighten it up as soon as possible ”
.
In fact, a shutdown of public life in large parts of Germany seems to be inevitable.
(Are the people around you mad at hairdressing appointments?) If, without this restriction of freedom, the vast majority of the sensible and vaccinated would not work, then such a
lockdown
would have to be
coupled with a very serious debate about them
general compulsory vaccination
from spring of next year, if possible, to prevent a fifth wave.
Otherwise it cannot be justified that the large majority have to forego freedoms again because of a small but unruly minority.
Lockdown in Bavaria: "The fourth wave is growing into a tsunami"
Worrying news of the day ...
... is the
new Corona variant B.1.1.529, called "Nu"
,
which is rapidly spreading in South Africa
, with a large number of mutations.
It may be more contagious and could escape immune protection more than "Delta".
The UK and Israel have already imposed travel restrictions on several states in Africa.
The old rule applies: we are only safe when everyone is safe.
The vaccination rate in South Africa is around 23 percent.
The latest news from the night
RKI reports 76,414 new infections:
The Robert Koch Institute registered 357 new deaths in connection with the coronavirus.
The seven-day incidence rises to a maximum.
And: Internationally, concern about virus variant B.1.1.529 is growing
Iraq plans to fly another 600 migrants from Belarus:
Hundreds of Belarusians were brought to Iraq a week ago.
Two more special machines are now expected.
The country wants to bring back more than 600 Iraqi citizens
»The Afghan girl« flown to Italy:
Sharbat Gula became world famous as a child - her photo adorned the cover of »National Geographic« and symbolized the suffering of the people in Afghanistan.
Now she has been evacuated to Rome
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I wish you a good start to the day.
Your Sebastian Fischer