Almost two-thirds of Germans are now of the opinion that the chancellor should dismiss his party member Lambrecht as defense minister. CSU boss Söder accuses Scholz of “absolute weakness in leadership”. The SPD still sees no objective reason for the criticism.
CSU boss Markus Söder has asked Chancellor Olaf Scholz to immediately dismiss Defense Minister Christine Lambrecht. The SPD politician was “simply overwhelmed with her job, from start to finish,” said the Bavarian Prime Minister at the start of the retreat of the CSU state group in the Bundestag in the Seeon monastery. “Every longer day creates more uncertainty. And if she herself finds it difficult to recognize that, it may well be, then the Federal Chancellor must act. That is a real leadership task of the Chancellor.”
It is an “absolute leadership weakness” of the Social Democrat Scholz that he leaves the greatest weakness of his federal government in such a central department in office. “The Federal Ministry of Defense is the most important ministry in terms of Germany’s credibility as an international security partner,” said the CSU chairman. “Nothing went right there all year. Breakdown after breakdown.”
Lambrecht had once again drawn sharp criticism with a New Year’s Eve video that was distributed on Instagram at the weekend. In it she took stock of the year 2022, which was marked by the war in Ukraine, her words were repeatedly lost in the whistling of New Year’s Eve rockets and exploding firecrackers.
The verdict of the Germans on the hapless SPD politician is similarly clear: 64 percent say that Chancellor Olaf Scholz should fire his minister. Only 23 percent are in favor of Lambrecht remaining in office. 13 percent have no opinion on this. This was the result of a recent Forsa survey for the “Stern”.
Not only the supporters of the opposition parties in the Bundestag are in favor of being thrown out of the cabinet, but also the majority of the voters of all three governing parties. 67 percent of the SPD, 57 percent of the Greens and 73 percent of the FDP supporters are in favor of dismissing Christine Lambrecht. “Such unanimity between the supporters of the individual parties is unusual and shows how deep the dissatisfaction with Lambrecht’s administration and her public appearances must be among German citizens,” Forsa boss Manfred Güllner told the magazine.
For the foreign policy spokesman for the SPD parliamentary group, Nils Schmid, on the other hand, there is still no reason to doubt the defense minister. “The opposition is taking Ms. Lambrecht’s video as an opportunity to once again call for her resignation. Even if the video wasn’t needed: For us as the SPD, it depends on the substance. Ms. Lambrecht is firmly anchored in the parliamentary group. For one There is no reason to resign,” said Schmid to ntv.de.
The data for the Lambrecht survey was collected by the market and opinion research institute Forsa for the RTL Group Germany on January 4th and 5th. Database: 1002 respondents. Statistical error tolerance: /- 3 percentage points.
