Csu wants tough election campaign with feeling

Csu wants tough election campaign with feeling

He wants to supplement rational election campaign arguments with emotionality, CSU leader horst seehofer said tuesday at the CSU winter meeting in wildbad kreuth. The union must not be a variant of the SPD and the greens, but an alternative. Talks with the CDU about the election campaign strategy have yet to be held. "It would be bad to announce the results of negotiations before they are held," said the CSU leader.

2009, the strategy of ronald pofalla, then CDU secretary general and now head of the chancellor’s office, was based on "asymmetric demobilization" – the SPD voters were to be made less fearful of a black-yellow coalition and thus less motivated to vote. The CSU already had doubts about the "schlaagen election campaign" at that time and subsequently felt confirmed by the unexpectedly poor results of the union – CDU/CSU had only achieved 33.8 percent at that time.

In the meantime, seehofer has abandoned his plans for his own CSU election platform. He does not want a joint election program with the CDU to fail because of the demand for a toll on cars, which was rejected by chancellor angela merkel (CDU). If necessary, however, the CSU will formulate its own points in parallel, seehofer said. "There are points where you can’t come to an understanding despite all the friendship," said the bavarian minister-president. Then it was not unusual in the past that the CSU decided on some own points on an extra sheet of paper. "This is how we will do it."

There is still no definitive solution for the election dates of the bundestag and the bavarian state parliament. In the speech are the 22. September for the federal election and the 15. September for the state elections, because these are the only two dates that fall outside the vacation period. In the CSU, however, there are concerns about having federal and state elections on two consecutive weekends. "We don’t have a solution yet," seehofer says. German president joachim gauck will set the date for the federal elections before the government in munich decides on the date for the bavarian elections.

The irritation that seehofer caused in the CSU before christmas with attacks on his own party friends ("gluhwurmchen" etc.) did not play a role in kreuth, according to seehofer and the head of the state group gerda hasselfeldt. "The fact that the irritation of a few weeks ago played no role at all in this long discussion makes it clear that this is no longer a topic for which one has to waste time," said hasselfeldt.