Wieduwilts week: little Olaf is sitting on a bomb

Angela Merkel is history, the new coalition trudges through the troubles of the plain before the congratulatory bouquets wither. Chancellor Olaf Scholz will now have four years to do with keeping the centrifugal forces of the traffic lights under control.

You may know the dummy giant Mr. Tur Tur, he is a character from “Jim Button”. It looks huge and huge, but when you step closer, it gets a little smaller with every step. In the logic of the fairy tale writer Michael Ende, Olaf Scholz is a pseudo dwarf: he makes himself smaller than he is. So small that some journalists occasionally call him “Olaf” – just like his comrades do. But the closer you get, the more you recognize the political giant: This calm Hanseatic man is a power man. It has to be, because otherwise this traffic light will tear apart before the first shot of German mineral water meets aperitif in spring.

When body language experts talk about “taking up space”, they mean sweeping gestures, dumping the extremities on pieces of furniture or people around them. Like, for example, FDP rioter Wolfgang Kubicki. At the family photo of the parliamentary group leadership, he held the – of all people – health politician Christine Aschenberg-Dugnus with his hand stuck on the chair. So that it just doesn’t take off.

Olaf Scholz would never think of such a man’s gesture in a thousand years. He always holds his hands to his body, sometimes angled absurdly high, as if in prayer. His signature looks like someone’s pen fell on a piece of paper, very small, just don’t take up any space. Scholz’s voice knows no ups and downs, it is monotonous on a level with phrases, punches and administrative German. Take up no space. Little Scholz. Allegedly.

Merkel with a height of 5 centimeters

In the meantime, the Osnabrück-born Hanseatic resident has raised this strange crumbling up to his trademark. The “north-east German mentality” will continue to determine the Chancellery, announced the 170 centimeter short man at the handover. He had already folded the diamond during the election campaign – is he a Merkel with a bald head, excess testosterone and 5 centimeters tall? “I said ‘yes'” he tweeted laconically according to his choice. When he assumed one of the most powerful offices on the planet in parliament, he did not even get up from his chair, he was so small.

Of course that’s all nonsense, namely show: Scholz is a power man, he wanted Chancellor at the age of 12 will. An unprecedented act of balancing lies ahead of him. On the one hand, he is not allowed to steal the show from the ego catapults Robert Habeck and Christian Lindner. He has to let them run like bright dogs – and at the same time hold them under the curb like political horses. He promised his colleagues that everyone would be able to shine at the traffic lights – and yet he still has to set the direction. And in fact, that is what characterized the communication of the traffic light so far: control and demonstrated nonchalance.

So it’s not surprising how Scholz has been choosing his media appearances lately. Finally he spoke about vaccination, on Bild TV and on Prosieben at Joko & Klaas. After taking office, he gave the first interview to the children’s news program “Logo” from Kika and immediately afterwards Welt TV. In “Bild” and “Welt” he reached vaccination skeptics – and the Spring media also spread his message in print in the days that followed. The press officer is pleased: once in the studio, three days of press presence.

“It depends on the Chancellor”

Other media still have to practice this multiple use. Joko and Klaas are not just TV, their clips have the potential to “go viral” – win win for Olaf and his PR team: presence without danger. In contrast to Angela Merkel, the Social Democrat insisted on strolling into German TV public under a gigantic red heart for “Ein Herz für Kinder”. Who would advise him, Olaf Scholz, to do anything else as a communications consultant?

At least not his spin doctor, the ex-journalist and long-time SPD communicator Steffen Hebestreit. That “Olaf” and his press spokesman, meanwhile advanced to government spokesman, the term message control have penetrated well, shows a clip of the ARD: When the journalists want to confront Scholz, lifting controversy brutally intervenes.

When asked who wears the pants suit when it comes to foreign policy – in the GroKo it was Angela Merkel – the supposedly little Olaf doesn’t talk around for long: He, just him, who else, please? Baerbock, for example, with their refreshingly clear course towards Vladimir Putin !? “It depends on the Chancellor” is the slogan. The Greens foreign politician Omid Nouripour reminded, somewhat annoyed, of the cook-waiter logic of past coalitions.

Fooling around for the liberals

So there was a thunderstorm in the traffic light paradise on the first day. Scholz is sitting on a bomb. But peace is decreed: no changing majorities, unity in the cabinet, that is so expressly stated in the coalition agreement. So the traffic light wants to continue the silent, disciplined work from the negotiations. And it would be a blessing after the old-fashioned hacking and piercing of the past legislative periods!

In the medium term, Scholz is likely to cause the FDP more worries than green foreign policy. It sits on the outer edge of the internal logic of the traffic light: Taxes, financial feasibility, climate protection, corona and freedom – the liberals have to grit their teeth particularly hard on all of these core issues. The outsider position of the FDP gave it a power surplus after the collapse of the Jamaica alternative. If she’s fed up, the whole beautiful project is ruined.

That is the reason why the traffic light is colored astonishingly yellow in terms of content and personnel. The liberal Volker Wissing as transport minister is likely to be seen by many Greens as a continuation of the CSU politician Andi Scheuer with other means. That is also the reason why the traffic light messed around so embarrassingly about “the epidemic situation of national importance”: At first it did not want to extend it, then in fact it did – with different vocabulary and all sorts of excuses. All for the love of liberalism. With ex-Spiegel editor-in-chief Wolfang Büchner, the FDP has rented its own PR gun and deputy government spokesman.

Can Olaf Scholz dance tiktok?

The traffic light has to keep the people happy, which is why Scholz bit the sour apple – and in this case the fruit did not lead to the proverbial doctor staying away, but rather that he took a seat on the chair of the health minister: the people wanted Karl Lauterbach , it got Karl Lauterbach. Even if this persona causes discomfort across all parties – a professional who makes his own decisions? Where is that going?

The spotlight Olaf will therefore perfect a mixture of maximum presence and minimal intervention in the future, all under absolute message control. His spokesman Steffen Hebestreit took over the Federal Press Office on Wednesday, the PR battalion of the federal government with 400 times more, sometimes less well-rested officials. He said, perhaps in jest: “I can promise the Chancellor that he will soon be able to dance tiktok”.

To be honest, I wouldn’t be particularly surprised. Maintaining power has its price. The more popular Scholz is, the more influence he has within the harmony-addicted traffic light, the more he has their centrifugal forces under control.

But you can also make yourself to fruit in front of a camera.

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