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Germany
Chancellor is so desperate: Corona is pushing Merkel to the limit of her power
At the end of her term as chancellor, the pandemic made Angela Merkel extremely popular. But this crisis also reveals the limits of its possibilities.
One last plea: Angela Merkel is feeling the loss of power and is now appealing to the Germans in the crisis of the crown.
Angela Merkel isn’t exactly known for her racy quotes and passionate speeches. Another chancellor appeared in the Bundestag on Wednesday.
One that left its target line for a moment and started an emotional call to somehow avoid disaster with many dead and overcrowded hospitals in this crown winter. She is also “sincerely sorry,” she said, with a view to further toughening up, for which the chancellor is campaigning.
Only Merkel herself knows whether emotionality has exploded in Merkel to some extent or whether she has deliberately opted for passionate speech. Presumably, the chancellor saw few alternatives to a sentiment-based speech, because the repertoire of appeals and warnings after nine months The crown crisis is exhausted and many people have grown weary of warnings from politicians.
Germany heads for a tough blockade
While Switzerland has been hit harder by the pandemic relative to its population than Germany, but it still maintains open cafes and sports facilities and struggles to run its ski slopes, the country of 83 million probably controls sooner, but more. take after Christmas. to a new strict blockade, at least imposed regionally.
In assessing the pandemic, Merkel, who has a Ph.D. in physics, is completely the natural scientist acting on the basis of scientific facts and having the freedom to no longer have to fight for reelection. Merkel considers the current situation in Germany extremely dangerous.
Unusually emotional: Chancellor Angela Merkel speaks in the Bundestag during the general debate on the federal budget.
Crown fatigue is spreading in the population, and after six weeks of partial blockage, infections are still not abating. And now the Christmas holidays are approaching, in which traditionally people are drawing closer. If Merkel had urged tougher measures in the Bundestag on Wednesday in a well-known factual way, the media would hardly have addressed her speech in more detail, her message would hardly have gotten through.
You don’t know where you’re going to end
Ironically, “the biggest challenge since WWII,” as Merkel had described the crown crisis, gave the CDU head of government the best poll results since 2015. According to a representative poll, 74 percent Hundreds of Germans are satisfied with Merkel, including the black one she led. – The Red Union coalition and the SPD received a good two-thirds rating.
It is not a particularly good prospect for the CDU, as it will have to face the next federal elections in September 2021 without its workhorse Merkel and does not even know with whom it will participate in the electoral campaign.
As in previous years, Merkel has the highest approval in the midst of a crisis. The daughter of an East German shepherd has earned a lot of authority and reputation in her 15 years in government, especially internationally, but also among Germans themselves. In difficult phases, people tend to back the government anyway, Merkel also enjoys its factual behavior. a trust bonus.
“If you get on a plane that is flying it, you don’t have to be afraid. It is technically very good, guaranteed not to crash ”, former SPD leader Franz Müntefering appreciatively compared Angela Merkel to a flight captain. However, he also added: “The problem is: you don’t know where you are ending up.”
Former SPD leader Franz Müntefering saw Germany in safe hands (those of Angela Merkel). (File image)
Merkel is having a hard time with the loss of power
It is uncertain where Germany will end up one day after the pandemic. It would be unfair to blame Merkel for this: the pandemic is equally unpredictable for all states and their governments. And yet Merkel struggles with the fact that Corona shows her the limits of her power to a degree that was not the case in earlier times during the refugee or euro crisis.
At least that’s what Berlin journalist and author Albrecht von Lucke believes. Her emotional appeal on Wednesday was an expression of the fact that Merkel had “reached the limits of her Latin,” the 53-year-old said in an interview Thursday. His passion clearly expressed his despair that Merkel was “at the limits of her power.”
One last plea
Although the Chancellor will no longer run for another term next year and therefore could act exempted from popularity ratings, she currently needs the public’s trust in her Chancellery more than ever to push forward her policy to contain the pandemic. His emotional appeal on Wednesday, according to von Lucke, “was an absolutely last request, actually also an expression of this impotence.”
Angela Merkel will no longer run for chancellor in 2021. (Symbol image)
Merkel is at the height of her popularity and at the same time at the limit of her power. At least Merkel’s speech doesn’t seem to have stopped working. At least not with the heads of government of the 16 federal states. They want to discuss with Merkel on Sunday how things should go before and after Christmas in Germany. The country faces difficult weeks.
