Embarrassing clubhouse appearance
Ramelow was “pretty drunk” during Candy Crush testimony
March 6, 2024, 12:19 a.m
Bodo Ramelow likes to play Candy Crush in sometimes lengthy Prime Minister’s Conferences – with this admission and his “Merkelchen” remark during a clubhouse discussion, Thuringia’s Prime Minister caused irritation in the pandemic year of 2021. Now he explains how this came about.
When Thuringia’s Prime Minister Bodo Ramelow spoke about the online game Candy Crush during a clubhouse appearance and called the then Chancellor “Merkelchen”, he said he was drunk. The 68-year-old revealed this at a “Fuck up Night” in a lecture hall at the University of Erfurt. “I was pretty drunk,” said the left-wing politician. “Fuck up Nights” is about reporting on your own failures and admitting mistakes. In addition to Ramelow, other Thuringian politicians also talked about embarrassments and failures.
Ramelow’s appearance on the audio platform Clubhouse in 2021 caused a stir because he said that he played Candy Crush every now and then to clear his head – even at Prime Minister’s conferences. These sometimes lengthy rounds between the federal and state governments often took place during the corona pandemic, for example to decide on measures. The Candy Crush admission wasn’t the only sensitive statement in the Clubhouse discussion: Ramelow called then-Chancellor Angela Merkel “Merkelchen,” for which he later apologized.
Clubhouse is a social media app from the USA that was hyped in Germany for a while. It is an audio format with talk sessions. In summary, Ramelow now said: “And the three beers were too many to play Clubhouse.”
FDP politician regrets role in Kemmerich election
At the event, FDP politician Robert-Martin Montag described the few seconds during the prime ministerial election on February 5, 2020, when his party colleague Thomas Kemmerich was elected head of government and then asked by the President of the State Parliament whether he accepted the election. Kemmerich leaned over to Monday and asked whether he had to answer that directly. Monday answered “yes”.
It was only a short time later that he realized that he could have interrupted the meeting. This would have given Kemmerich time to think about it. “I didn’t know. That was my third session in the state parliament,” said Montag. Kemmerich’s election as Prime Minister with votes from the AfD triggered a political earthquake in Thuringia. Just a few days after his election, Kemmerich resigned as Prime Minister.