Thursday, September 2nd, 2021
Eight supporters in the election campaign
Laschet’s “future team” should fix it
The bad polls are pushing the Union to act. Chancellor candidate Armin Laschet will no longer be the only face in the federal election campaign. In his “future team”, a terrorism expert, a music manager, but also an old acquaintance should ensure positive points for the voters.
Union Chancellor candidate Armin Laschet will present a so-called future team tomorrow morning. The CDU invited to an appropriate date. The members are to appear more publicly in the remaining three weeks of the election campaign. According to “Spiegel” there should be a team of eight.
The team should include terrorism expert Peter Neumann, as a spokesman confirmed. He should be responsible for the topic of networking internal and external security. Neumann is director of the International Center for the Study of Radicalization at King’s College London and is considered an expert on Islamist terror. Laschet had already brought him to his team in 2017 for the state elections in North Rhine-Westphalia. Neumann wrote on Twitter: “I’ve known Armin Laschet since 2016, I already supported him in North Rhine-Westphalia in 2017 and I’m doing it again now. With full conviction. I’ll explain why tomorrow morning.”
Former Union parliamentary group leader Friedrich Merz is also to become a member of the so-called future team. Laschet had said on Tuesday at the economic day of the Economic Council of the CDU that Merz was the “economic and financial face” that would also shape federal politics after the election. Merz was inferior to Laschet in the fight for the party chairmanship – previously he had already lost out to Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer in the fight for the CDU leadership.
As the news portal “The Pioneer” reported, the team will include Digital State Minister Dorothee Bär from the CSU. Bär should therefore be responsible for digital, Merz for the areas of business and finance. Schleswig-Holstein’s minister of culture, Karin Prien, is planned for education policy, and for the field of work, social affairs and “equal living conditions”, the Saxon minister of culture, Barbara Klepsch.
According to the report, CDU Vice Silvia Breher should take over the issue of family policy. Music manager Joe Chialo, who is applying for a direct mandate in the Bundestag in Berlin-Spandau, will be presented as the team’s cultural representative. Union parliamentary group vice-chairman Andreas Jung from Baden-Württemberg should be responsible for climate protection policy. In total, Laschet wants to present four women and four men. The Union did not officially comment on the names of the team.
Spahn promotes “strong minds” in the Union
A few days ago, Health Minister Jens Spahn called for more to rely on the team behind Laschet. “We have good people who also make up the Union as a team,” said the CDU politician on the television channel Bild. Whoever chooses CDU and CSU, said Spahn, will get Friedrich Merz and Markus Söder, also Spahn and Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, also Carsten Linnemann and Karl-Josef Laumann and also Dorothee Bär and Nadine Schön. It is the strength of CDU boss Laschet, “to be able to put together a team, to be able to have strong minds even in the cabinet in the closest team”.
Last Monday, Laschet had for the first time linked a central election campaign issue specifically with heads. Four weeks before the federal election, the CDU chairman had the two members of the Bundestag, Andreas Jung and Thomas Heilmann, as well as the young politician Wiebke Winter explain details of an energy paper.
Laschet and the Union are under great pressure. In current surveys, the SPD has overtaken the CDU and CSU with top candidate Olaf Scholz.
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