IIn other federal states or states, a minister or head of government would have had to resign for far less important reasons. It was therefore overdue that in Rhineland-Palatinate, more than a year after the devastating flood in the Ahr valley that killed 134 people, the Minister of the Interior responsible for disaster control announced his resignation.
And it shows the downside of decades of rule by a party whose representatives believe they are unassailable. Roger Lewentz should have taken political and personal responsibility much earlier for his disastrous inaction during the flood night on the Ahr from July 14th to 15th, 2021.
Fragile line of defence
Only when video footage of the massive tidal wave appeared, filmed from a police helicopter in the late evening hours and showing houses swept away and desperate people on the roofs, led to the political end of the most powerful man in the cabinet of SPD Prime Minister Malu Dreyer.
His line of defense that he did not have a clear picture of the situation at the time that indicated a catastrophe with fatalities became fragile. It also didn’t help Lewentz that the CDU district administrator responsible for the measures at district level lost his office because of just such inactivity as a scapegoat.
Unlike Anne Spiegel, former State Environment Minister from the Greens, who resigned as Federal Minister for Family Affairs in April, also because of serious mistakes during and after the flood disaster, Lewentz had political life insurance until recently: the backing of his boss. For Dreyer, Lewentz also seemed indispensable as an election campaign strategist and among the members of the popular SPD state chairman. Now Dreyer is being targeted by the opposition because of her role in the flood night and afterwards. Merely referring to Lewentz will not be enough. As in Berlin, the statics of the Mainz traffic lights could also falter.