Is that supposed to be the “future”? Laschet’s efforts in Jamaica are already a farce

Armin Laschet wants to save himself in a “future coalition”. Even the selection of its probes tastes of the past – no state can be made like this, comments Florian Naumann.

Munich – the Greens and FDP are already doing it, the SPD will follow – and on Sunday evening, the last of the parties, the CDU and CSU will also start exploring. The history of this timetable alone is painful or even significant for the Union. Even more significant, however, is the selection of explorers that the conservatives send into the talks about the “coalition of the future” that they themselves are calling for.

Jamaica soundings: Laschet at war with the future – even before the start, the CDU soundings taste of the past

Why? In short: Because these days the Union itself is talking a lot about coming to terms with work, awakening, renewal or even the “future”. In the talks with the FDP, however, the sister parties send the personified “Let’s take a look”, “Keep it up”; also viewed positively “tried and tested”, but in any case almost without exception exponents of the Merkel era. Extended by Armin Laschet, who has long been counted up to complete humiliation.

Now nobody expects a party to leave the secretary general, parliamentary group or party leader at home during exploratory talks for a new federal government, even if his name is Laschet. Naturally, you will also want to have one or two negotiators who have been tried and tested in battle at the table. And in this respect, mitigating circumstances also apply to the CSU, which is limited to five delegates – although here too the question remains whether Dorothee Bär has to be a rather unsuccessful Minister of State in Dorothee Bär. Hasn’t Söder himself been calling for “new faces” for many months?

But Laschet’s ten-person presidential troop is tantamount to a political declaration of bankruptcy on several levels.

In addition to the party leader, general and parliamentary group leader, there are three prime ministers – one on the CDU executive committee since 2008 (Reiner Haseloff), the other party vice since 2010 (Volker Bouffier) ​​- Thomas Strobl, multiple electoral loser from Baden-Württemberg, and Merkel minister Jens Spahn and Julia Klöckner. The latter in the regional association has even drawn the consequences from two election slips. The “renewal” amounts to the previously pale party vice Silvia Breher and Schleswig-Holstein’s Jamaica Prime Minister Daniel Günther.

Explorations after the federal election: CDU and the “future” – Laschet even made the election surprisingly

There is no longer any trace of Laschet’s future team – even of climate expert Wiebke Winter, who still assigned Laschet a leading role after the election. Just as little as by representatives of the many different Union party wings. The exploratory group of the CDU breathes the Merkel years from every pore. And should now prepare the future. A farce. Even the objection that the probes followed the election bankruptcy very quickly, it comes to nothing. The Christian Democrats had at least two years to prepare for a change; Laschet himself and his “teams” promised it at least half-heartedly during the election campaign. But everything continues as before. Only without Angela Merkel.

How often can a party stand up and show itself amazed that the future is already here? About the fact that a Corona winter is coming, about an election campaign, about the fact that the election is over? And how is such a party supposed to set the course for decades to come? Laschet has already sowed new doubts about all promises of renewal. A state cannot be made with this CDU. Literally.

Florian Naumann