Tied up in the FDP cubbyhole
Strack-Zimmermann not at the carnival for “reasons”.
2/17/2023, 5:07 p.m
Today Munich, but then again the carnival: This is what the travel plan of the FDP security politician Strack-Zimmermann could look like if the native of Düsseldorf were to travel directly to the Rhineland after the Munich Security Conference. She rejects it, humorously, but perhaps also somewhat true.
After the scandal surrounding her carnival appearance, in which CDU party leader Friedrich Merz in particular got his fat off, FDP politician Marie-Agnes Strack-Zimmermann wished all “fools a wonderful street carnival” – and their absence from the carnival bash with one cartoon explained.
The work of the political cartoonist Heiko Sakurai shows the native of Düsseldorf gagged and in a straitjacket fixed to a chair – in a dark room, obviously an FDP office. A speech bubble reads through a closed door that she was “locked away until Ash Wednesday” and that, in the interest of FDP election chances, it was irresponsible “to let her roam freely during carnival.”
Strack-Zimmermann takes up the idea from the caricature and writes about her absence from the carnival: “Unfortunately I’m not going to be there this year for ‘reasons’ and I will secretly flee from my dungeon to the Munich Security Conference.”
Whether Strack-Zimmermann is dishing out slight tips against her own party here, or is teasing the media discourse about her appearance at the award of the “Order against Animal Seriousness”, who knows.
A jeckin through and through
After her much-discussed Bütten speech, Strack-Zimmermann initially heard a lot of criticism from the CDU, but rejected an apology that she was asked to make to Friedrich Merz. She targeted the CDU leader with particularly harsh passages:
“No one wanted to have him twice, because it was hard to bear,” said the handmade speaker, who was consequently disguised as Snow White’s evil stepmother, about the “old white man” and his first failed attempts to become party chairman: “Outwardly a bourgeois appearance, in the heart but very mean. He mocks those who have fled war as social tourists. If a boy’s name is Ali and not Sascha, he insults him as an elementary school pasha. And all climate activists are only terrorists for him. But if a Nazi prince drives too wild, then he will the flying dwarf suddenly mild. Those who think they are Christian should be ashamed of him.”
The criticism from the CDU could then have been followed by more: “Pioneer” reported after the embarrassment of the FDP in the Berlin repeat election of internal party criticism not only from the Berlin FDP top candidate Sebastian Czaja, but also from Federal Finance Minister Christian Lindner – which he did, however denied.
Now Strack-Zimmermann is alluding to that with her tweet. So was she exposed to internal criticism after all and is she now responding offensively in a straight Zimmermann manner? Or is she just making fun of the whole discussion? This is not entirely clear, nor is it whether the politician will really stay away from the carnival altogether. Only Marie-Agnes Strack-Zimmermann will know the answers, a Jeckin through and through.