2024-07-27 11:04:26
The CDU’s top candidate in Brandenburg is caught driving an e-scooter while drunk. After sharp criticism from his coalition partners, he receives support from his own party.
After his drunk driving on an e-scooter, Brandenburg CDU state and parliamentary group leader Jan Redmann is receiving further support from his party. Like Secretary General Carsten Linnemann, Thuringian state chairman Mario Voigt also backed him. Like Redmann, he is in the state election campaign.
“Mistakes are human – the decisive factor is how you deal with them,” Voigt told the “Rheinische Post” newspaper in Düsseldorf. He pointed out that his party colleague had made the incident public himself. “Here, Jan Redmann showed greatness.”
Linnemann had previously praised Redmann’s handling of the events. “It’s important – I learned this from my grandmother: mistakes can happen, but you have to own up to them – and mistakes can only happen once and not twice,” Linnemann told Welt TV. Redmann is also a member of the CDU federal executive board.
The 44-year-old, who is to lead the CDU as the top candidate in the Brandenburg state elections on September 22, said he was stopped by the police last week during a short ride on his electric scooter in Potsdam at night with a breath alcohol level of 1.3 per mille. He informed the media about this a few hours after the ride.
“I am aware that this is a very relevant, dominant topic at the moment, and that it will certainly put a strain on the start of the election campaign,” Redmann told the German Press Agency. However, there are still around two months until the state election. “A time that I want to use to convince people of the CDU.”
The incident, however, continues to raise questions. Rebmann himself says he was stopped without any specific reason. “The police officer and policewoman told me that it was a general traffic check,” he said when asked. The “Märkische Allgemeine” newspaper, however, reported, citing an internal police report, that Redmann was stopped “because of his driving.”
The CDU’s coalition partners in Brandenburg have sharply criticized the situation. SPD parliamentary group leader Daniel Keller questions Redmann’s suitability as a candidate for the post of prime minister if it turns out that this was not a routine check. Green parliamentary group leader Benjamin Raschke sees significant unanswered questions and is demanding a complete investigation. A red-black-green coalition led by Prime Minister Dietmar Woidke (SPD) is currently governing Brandenburg.