Green Chancellor candidate in the “ARD election arena”

In the middle of the hot election campaign phase, the SPD chancellor candidate Olaf Scholz was received by French President Emmanuel Macron on Monday in Paris. Union Chancellor candidate Armin Laschet (CDU) will also be a guest at the Elysée on Wednesday. Green candidate Annalena Baerbock, on the other hand, has expressly waived a visit to Macron before the election. She would rather use as much time as possible for exchanging ideas with people in Germany, it is said from her environment.
There is an opportunity to do so on Monday evening in the “ARD election arena”, which is broadcast live from the Kulturwerft in Lübeck.

Voters have 75 minutes to put their questions to the candidate for chancellor. The election arena will be moderated by NDR editor-in-chief Andreas Cichowicz and Ellen Ehni, WDR editor-in-chief.

There are a maximum of 60 spectators in the studio. However, due to the pandemic, guests are also connected via video. During the live broadcast, viewers can get in touch and address their questions directly to the politician. Today’s broadcast marks the start of a three-part series. On Tuesday, Olaf Scholz (SPD) will answer questions from the audience, and on Wednesday next week, Armin Laschet (CDU) will take the lead.

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The Green Chancellor candidate had recently confirmed her claim to lead the government, “preferably with the SPD”.

Three weeks before the federal election, however, the SPD and Union are well ahead of the Greens. According to an Insa survey, the SPD with Chancellor candidate Olaf Scholz recently expanded its lead over the Union. The Social Democrats gained one percentage point compared to the previous week and are now 25 percent. The CDU and CSU with their candidate for Chancellor Armin Laschet together come to 20 percent, one point less than a week ago. In third place, the Greens lost one point and are now 16 percent – followed by the FDP, which remains unchanged at 13 percent.

A call from celebrities for Baerbock, which was published on Monday, should act as an encouragement. Celebrities around the musician Bela B (Die Doctors) made a recommendation for the Greens. “Together we call for this time to vote green,” says a Facebook post on the drummer’s side. More than 30 other artists signed the call. They include BAP musicians Wolfgang Niedecken, Judith Holofernes (Wir sind Helden), Sven Regener (Element of Crime), singer Balbina as well as bestselling author Frank Schätzing and director Leander Haußmann.

“Humanity is facing the greatest challenge in its history. The climate catastrophe as a result of man-made global warming is not threatening, it is happening, ”said Bela B, whose real name is Dirk Albert Felsenheimer. The artists also find critical words: “As cultural workers, we may not always be convinced of the position of the Greens on issues that are important to us, such as copyright law.”

For them, however, other issues are more important: “We can live with the weaknesses of the Greens because there are other policy areas which, in their severity and urgency, push our personal interests into the background: climate protection, environmental protection, protection of human rights.”