During these German legislative elections of September 26, Christian Lindner is for the third time a candidate for the chancellery for the liberal-democratic party FDP, of which he is president, even if at the end of this election, this management consultant of 42 years would see himself as Minister of Finance.
Do not repeat the mistakes of the past
Above all, the Liberals are trying not to repeat the mistakes of the past. The 2013 debacle – when the FDP failed to win a seat in the Bundestag – left its mark, as did the failures to participate in a government.
After the 2017 elections, Christian Lindner ended negotiations to create a “Jamaica” coalition alongside the CDU-CSU and the Greens, saying: “It is better not to rule than to rule badly.”
Ambivalence on the health crisis
In recent months, the party has shown ambivalence towards the Covid-19 crisis: a representative of the FDP Wolfgang Kubicki titled his book on this subject: “Freedom Culled”. During the campaign, Christian Lindner described the quarantine as a method of the Middle Ages while assuring that his party did not belong to the camp of coronasceptics.
The FDP sees itself as a bulwark against the left, but does not always clearly distinguish itself from the positioning of the far-right AfD party.
Faced with the climate crisis, Christian Lindner relies on German ingenuity and criticizes the climate strike movement.
And don’t talk to him abouttax the richest more. Here is what he replied last August in a German television interview: “Those with higher incomes also pay more taxes. Often, people with such incomes do not earn it for themselves, it is the income of their small and medium-sized businesses that also feeds the economy. ‘a country,” he stressed.
A role of kingmaker?
The Liberals are generally seen as the party of Porsche drivers. As for the place of women, its leader has often been criticized for the way he treats his female colleagues within the party.
Whatever its positions, the FDP often plays a kingmaker role in German politics as a essential partner to govern.
Reference-feedproxy.google.com