Comeback kings Merz and Scholz: These are the top politicians in 2021

The unofficial title of “Top Politician 2021” will probably not hang in the office of any of the people named in the ranking. The only titles that count in politics are associated with offices. And some of them came unexpectedly or impressively. A – quite subjective – overview:

Top politicians in 2021

10. Ralph Brinkhaus
Armin Laschet, Norbert Röttgen, Jens Spahn, Paul Ziemiak: The list of CDU men from North Rhine-Westphalia who have fallen deep this year is long. Only one is still there. And this post is worth more in the CDU than it has been for 16 years: Ralph Brinkhaus, as Union parliamentary group leader, has been the opposition leader since the federal election. Admittedly, even he could not shine when Laschet tried in vain for the Federal Chancellery in the summer. But Brinkhaus didn’t screw it up either. And anyone who saw his appearance after Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s first government declaration remembers what a great rhetorical talent Brinkhaus is. The new CDU leader Friedrich Merz will need weighty arguments if he wants to take over the chairmanship from Brinkhaus in the spring. In any case, Brinkhaus does not give it up voluntarily. He has already politically outlived completely different men from North Rhine-Westphalia.

9. Bärbel Bas
You don’t know Bärbel Bas? That speaks for a healthy distance from politics. Up until autumn, the specialist politician of the SPD was mainly known to those who are professionally involved in the Bundestag. Bas’ rise to President of the Bundestag is also the work of the women in her party. They did not want to allow the men to divide the highest offices among themselves. So the choice fell surprisingly on the 53-year-old from Duisburg. In terms of her biography, the health politician is not only close to the people, she also shows a refreshing amount of humor and a relaxed atmosphere in her first plenary sessions that her well-deserved predecessor Wolfgang Schäuble lacks. By the end of next year, Bas should therefore be one of the most famous politicians in the country – even among those who never look at Phoenix.

8. Karl Lauterbach
Had it been up to Karl Lauterbach, he would not have been Federal Minister of Health now. Because the 58-year-old medical professor from the ranks of the SPD would certainly have gladly done without the corona pandemic. In this way, however, Lauterbach becomes the most famous health politician in the country, commuting for a year and a half between reading studies and appearing on TV. Hostilities do not dissuade him. The fact that he sometimes irritates party friends with his solo show is also not. When the SPD surprisingly clearly won the Bundestag election in September, he was treated as the new Federal Minister of Health and had to fear for a long time. In the end, however, Chancellor Scholz cannot ignore the man from Düren, who is valued by many citizens. And: who in the SPD would have wanted to become Minister of Health under Lauterbach?

7. Volker Wissing
The fact that in the end a middle-aged man succeeds FDP General Secretary Linda Teuteberg is seen by many observers as a defeat for the dominant party leader Christian Lindner. In fact, the election of the then Minister of Economics of Rhineland-Palatinate proves to be a clever move: Wissing not only has the format to compete alongside Lindner. The man who is part of a traffic light government at home can also set his own accents in Berlin and thus becomes the perfect double partner for Lindner, who, unlike Wissing, lacks imagination for the traffic light before the election. After the election it is known to be different, and it is the red-green experienced Wissing who bags the new government alliance with the general secretaries of the SPD and the Greens. The wages: one of the most important cabinet posts in the new government, much to the grief of the Greens.

6. Manuela Schwesig
As Federal Minister for Family Affairs, she is the rising star of the SPD, but what Manuela Schwesig succeeds in in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania in September 2021 has been labeled “unthinkable” for a long time. Schwesig wins the state elections with around 40 percent, and wherever the voters are about to vote for the SPD, many also make their mark on the Social Democrats in the federal elections that are taking place at the same time. The party wins all direct seats in the Bundestag in the country. Schwesig is then acted for the federal party chairmanship and does not seem averse. But Saskia Esken doesn’t want to give way. It doesn’t matter: The 47-year-old also has a lot to say in the federal government – and at the same time shows that the east also supports strict corona measures with stringent communication.

5. Lars Klingbeil

How do you become head of the SPD at the age of 43? By first bringing the quarreling party together and then bringing them to the Chancellery. The soldier’s son did not succeed in both of these things on his own, but no one doubts the General Secretary’s share in the SPD’s success in 2021. Klingbeil’s qualities are widely praised after the election, but the hoped-for office of defense minister does not fall to him. Instead, Klingbeil seizes the opportunity to become the new chairman and leaves no doubt about what he intends to do in the office: to win the state elections next year and to anchor the SPD as the new top dog in German politics. Klingbeil announced at ntv.de that he wanted to “shape” his party. If he can do that, he can still take over a government position.

4. Friedrich Merz
Merkel is gone and he is finally party chairman: Friedrich Merz has reached his goal at the end of the year, after failing his candidacy in 2018 and January 2021. But unlike the delegates in the last ballots, the members of the digital can agree with a clear majority on the Sauerland. What Merz didn’t see coming: He’s taking over the CDU in a disastrous state. She has yet to find her role in the opposition. Many conflicts are unsolved in terms of content and personnel. But Merz wouldn’t be Merz if he didn’t dare to do this job. First showdown in spring, when the parliamentary group chairmanship is re-elected.

3. Robert Habeck
In mid-April, the Greens chairman experienced the “hardest day” of his political career, as he later confessed. To proclaim his co-chair Baerbock as the Greens’ first candidate for chancellor was a “bittersweet” moment. However, he does not have to congratulate Baerbock on his election as Federal Chancellor. Despite a good starting position, your election campaign fails, also because of technical errors by the party and the candidate. Whether Habeck would have done better remains to be speculated. The fact is, however: In return for his waiver in the spring, she assured him the first access right in the fall, should the Greens only become a junior partner in a new government: Habeck is now Vice Chancellor and is in charge of the success of the energy transition. If he shows a lucky hand, the candidate for chancellor may still work out after all.

2. Christian Lindner
At the beginning of 2021, the tide turned for Christian Lindner and the FDP. In the first Corona year, the liberals can neither score points as a partner of the federal government nor with a fundamental opposition. In addition, there is criticism of Lindner’s eternal solo show as party leader. The FDP scratches the 5 percent mark in surveys. But the more coherently the FDP’s constructive criticism of the Corona policy is presented, the more unprofessional and divided the Union is, the more things will go up for the closed and freshly appearing FDP from January onwards. In view of survey highs of around 14 percent, the election result of 11.5 percent is almost sobering. But it is enough to lead the party into the traffic light government, whereby friends and foes get the impression that the Liberals, as the smallest party in the three-party alliance, have bargained a lot for themselves. Eight years after Lindner led his party back into the Bundestag, he is now allowed to exercise his dream office as Federal Finance Minister. Lindner has more than fulfilled the promise to be the great political talent of the FDP.

1. Olaf Scholz
His party disdained him as chairman. The new chairmen even publicly doubted whether he was an upright social democrat. Committees of inquiry into the Wirecard scandal and the sparing of the Hamburg Warburgbank in a fraud affair hung on his neck. The image of the SPD: on the ground for years. Nevertheless, Olaf Scholz starts the year firmly convinced that he will be the next Federal Chancellor. His Secretary General Klingbeil is the only one who shares this conviction. But the unthinkable succeeds, also because the competitors Baerbock and Laschet mess up: “The citizens”, as Scholz basically calls the people, most likely trust the Federal Finance Minister and Vice Chancellor to put Angela Merkel’s big and, after 16 years, somewhat worn shoes Hatch. On the day of his election in the Bundestag, the 63-year-old almost bursts with pride and joy. All of this has now been told, but it does not change the fact that Olaf Scholz is the most successful politician of 2021. From now on, a different standard applies to him: Merkel, Kohl, Schmidt, Brandt and Adenauer.

Read tomorrow at ntv.de who the flop politicians of 2021 are.