Merz: Good starting position for the Berlin CDU in the repeat election
from BZ/dpa
The CDU federal chairman Friedrich Merz sees a good chance that the Berlin CDU will win the repeat election on February 12th.
Admittedly, surveys are snapshots. “But the trend that we have seen in recent weeks is what we expected,” says Merz. The CDU leader has announced that he will appear twice in the election campaign: on January 27 in Neukölln and shortly before the election on February 10 at a closing event with top candidate Kai Wegner. “I support Kai Wegner with all my might,” he told the newspaper.
In the most recent survey by Infratest dimap on behalf of the “Berliner Morgenpost” and the RBB “Abendschau”, the CDU came first with 23 percent of the votes. That was 2 percentage points more than in November. They are followed by the Greens with 21 percent (minus 1) and the SPD with 18 percent (minus 1) in third place. The left came to 11 percent, the AfD increased by one percentage point to 11, the FDP by one to 6 percent.
Criticism of his party in connection with the discussion about the consequences after the New Year’s riots with attacks on the police and fire brigade, Merz rejected in the interview. “We, too, claim that we want to exhaust our voting potential in an election campaign,” he said. The topic of internal security is one of the most important topics in Berlin, as is the topic of integration. “We’ll have to argue about that if necessary,” said Merz.
In the catalog of questions for the interior committee of the House of Representatives, the CDU also wanted to know the first names of suspects with German nationality – and triggered a wave of criticism, in which it was accused of populism and racism. This query of first names is also a tactical police tool that is used in other federal states, according to Merz. “What I regret is that this gives the impression that local people, that certain people who have such a first name, feel excluded and see themselves pushed into the second row somewhere in Germany.” He doesn’t want that.