Friday, January 22nd, 2021
"Start as late as possible"
Söder doesn't want an election campaign during the crisis
He and his party "do not want to take part in tactical games": CSU boss Söder wants to use all his strength to fight the corona pandemic and for the time being without campaigning despite the super election year. Nevertheless, he cannot resist remarks on possible coalitions.
According to CSU boss Markus Söder, the parties should deliberately refrain from campaigning during the Corona crisis. He feels that some parties are already trying to position themselves, said the Bavarian Prime Minister in his speech at the CSU's digital New Year's reception in Munich. The election campaign is okay, "but please not at this time. I think it should start as late as possible." The CSU will not take part in tactical games in Corona times, said Söder. "We are only guided by the matter."
The next federal election will take place on September 26th. Addressing the Greens, Söder stressed that an alliance with the Union could offer the potential for many interesting things. To do this, the Greens would first have to decide for themselves where their baseline is – if they wanted a bourgeois or a left-wing future, Söder said. The positioning should not be done too late.
Söder used his speech to again congratulate the new CDU leader Armin Laschet on his election. The CSU will work well with the CDU, there should be no more arguments. Instead, the Union sisters would have to show that they could rightly claim to be able to lead and develop the country after the era of Chancellor Angela Merkel.
The 54-year-old also spoke out against a rapid withdrawal of the corona restrictions. The lockdown works, the number of infections has halved. "It would be a mistake to cancel." Otherwise a rapid yo-yo effect threatens. The measures were extended until mid-February. "We will then see how it goes on." He hoped that the numbers would be better by then. However, nobody knows what challenges the mutated virus will bring.
Not "waiting in line like rabbits"
In this context, Söder whistled back his own deputy in the state government and minister of economics. Hubert Aiwanger from the Free Voters had called for ski lifts and hotels to open from February. Without mentioning his name, the CSU boss took up the demand directly in his speech and made it clear that the debate came at an inopportune time for him.
The current Corona measures would initially apply until mid-February, what will come after that remains to be seen. Unfortunately there are always politicians who like to explain "when something will be opened". "My urgent advice is that we should do what is necessary," said Söder. In order not to damage people's trust, it is important that politicians want the right thing and do the right thing.
Aiwanger had asked for the hotels and ski lifts to reopen in February. Together, the economics ministers should "also demand these opening steps at federal level" and not "wait like rabbits in front of the queue again for what comes from Ms. Merkel and the Prime Minister's Conference in Berlin," said Aiwanger.
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