After Kevin Kühnert’s resignation, Manuela Schwesig is demanding more leadership from the Chancellor – and better decisions.
Manuela Schwesig (SPD) sees the Chancellor as responsible after the resignation of SPD General Secretary Kevin Kühnert. “Olaf Scholz is the current Federal Chancellor and I firmly assume that he will also be the candidate for Chancellor,” said the Prime Minister of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania on Tuesday evening on “Maischberger”. “But it is also clear that in order for the SPD to win the federal election again, something has to change.”
- Manuela Schwesig (SPD), Prime Minister of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania
- Aviva seal, freed Hamas hostage
- Sophie von der Tann, ARD correspondent in Tel Aviv
- Christoph Schwennicke, Head of politics t-online
- Kerstin Palzer, Correspondent in the ARD capital studio
- Werner Sonne, ARD-Journalist
Schwesig directed her demand specifically to the head of government. Scholz has held the government together in the past few months, but as a result has not been visible enough to the citizens. “That’s why I think the time has now come for Olaf Scholz to move forward more strongly and say clearly about the big social things how he imagines them,” demanded Schwesig, with a view to issues such as the economy, migration and social issues.
The journalist Werner Sonne saw Schwesig’s statements as a “political slap in the face” for Scholz: “What she said about the Chancellor and his deficits, I have actually never heard with such clarity from leading Social Democrats before,” said the long-time studio manager of ARD -“Morning Magazine”. The FDP attested to Sonne’s “almost hysterical attempts at profiling.”
For t-online’s political director, Christoph Schwennicke, statements like Schwesig’s are not new. But he also found it “astonishing” in the commentary group how openly the SPD discussed the Chancellor’s deficits. What’s more: “I can’t remember a year before the federal election that an incumbent chancellor was questioned by his own people by saying: Well, someone else could actually do it,” said Schwennicke.
However, a possible main competitor for Scholz could now be eliminated due to Kühnert’s resignation, speculated Kerstin Palzer, correspondent in the ARD capital studio. With the appointment of Matthias Miersch as SPD general secretary, Defense Minister Boris Pistorius is “probably out of the running” as a candidate for chancellor, after all, both come from Lower Saxony. Scholz is from Hamburg.
Both Sonne and Schwennicke did not want to go along with this. However, the commentators at “Maischberger” were in agreement in criticizing the traffic light government’s idea of a 1,000 euro bonus if the long-term unemployed go back to work. “This product is politically unsaleable,” said Schwennicke. “These 1,000 euros don’t work at all,” agreed Schwesig.
The Prime Minister referred directly to the criticism of the t-online political director when she complained: “It may be that an economist can calculate this well, but we always have to place decisions in a social debate.” Hard-working people should not be given the impression that work is not worth it. The head of government in Schwerin warned: “We as Social Democrats in particular have to be very careful.”
Schwesig indirectly linked to this idea when Maischberger asked her about Egon Krenz. The former SED General Secretary recently described the GDR as a “peace state” in a speech. Schwesig attested that Krenz was trivializing the GDR and that he was responsible for a lot of injustice. “It wouldn’t have been so difficult economically if people like Mr. Krenz hadn’t watched the entire economy become ailing,” said Schwesig.
She also attested that Krenz was “speaking à la Wagenknecht” with regard to Ukraine. Just because the government supports Ukraine with weapons does not mean it is a warmonger and calls for negotiations with Russian ruler Vladimir Putin are not automatically messages of peace.
Both are necessary and will be done, said Schwesig. But it’s also clear: “If I’m constantly trying to get along with a difficult neighbor on the street and he comes over and sets fire to the house next door and murders the children, then you can’t carry on like that. Then there have to be consequences.”
At the end of the broadcast, Maischberger switched to Aviva Siegel in Tel Aviv. She was kidnapped from a kibbutz in the Hamas terrorist attack a year ago. She was released after 51 days and had to leave her husband Keith behind. “I was almost dead,” said the 62-year-old about the ordeal. The hostages left behind would probably constantly ask themselves: “Who will be the next one who will be raped, who will be beaten, who will go hungry?” Because the Hamas terrorists would do whatever they wanted with the prisoners.