"Hart aber fair" on the FDP: U-turn for Strack-Zimmermann?

Marie-Agnes Strack-Zimmermann calls ambitions to become FDP leader "speculation". On "Hart aber fair" she announced a decision in a few days.

Marie-Agnes Strack-Zimmermann does not want to publicly position herself as a possible successor to the failed FDP party leader Christian Lindner . On Monday evening, she described reports of alleged ambitions as speculation on "Hart aber fair". When Louis Klamroth asked whether she could imagine becoming party leader, the MEP remained silent. "That's not the point," she said. "The world is not that simple." Nevertheless, she pressed on.

"We are a team. And who in the team will take on which task over the next four years will become clear now, probably this week. And that's all that matters," announced Strack-Zimmermann on "Hart aber fair". The FDP will meet in Potsdam on February 9 for an extraordinary federal party conference.

"You're already speaking a bit like the future FDP chairwoman," Klamroth tried to coax the guest out of his shell. Strack-Zimmermann didn't take the bait. Instead, she assured him: "Nobody is going to do it alone." This was possibly a reference to her colleague on the presidium, Wolfgang Kubicki , who had surprisingly thrown his hat into the ring. Like Kubicki, Strack-Zimmermann stressed that the failure to return to the Bundestag had to be dealt with. Because the Liberals had four "tough" years ahead of them. But the MEP also said: "Nothing is burning for us."

The fact that all signs are currently pointing towards a grand coalition between the CDU and the SPD was also evident on "Hart aber fair" the day after the election. Not only did Klamroth place Philipp Amthor from the CDU and the head of the Chancellery Wolfgang Schmidt next to each other in the program on the question "Who will change Germany now?" Both also seemed to be trying to signal after the election campaign that they could govern together.

There is "justified hope" that Friedrich Merz will become chancellor - and Olaf Scholz should see that, said Amthor. "Justified hope," Klamroth repeated the rhetorically conspicuously low-key formulation. "Now the time for sayings is over, now it's about an agreement," said Scholz's confidant Schmidt.

However, this unity quickly broke down when it came to the AfD . Schmidt called the Union's joint vote with the AfD in the Bundestag a taboo break. "You made the Left strong and you made the AfD strong," he accused Amthor. The Green Party's deputy parliamentary group leader Andreas Audretsch made it clear that good cooperation in parliament means that cooperation with the AfD is ruled out for everyone.

All of this - and the fact that the probably largest opposition party was not represented on "Hart aber fair" - probably met with little understanding from Liane Bach. The non-party mayor of the small Thuringian community of Dillstäd, where every second person voted for the AfD, called on the CDU/CSU and SPD to give up the firewall: "Because if you ignore something, it will only get worse."

The AfD was democratically elected and should be included in decisions, demanded the local politician on "Hart aber fair". Instead, the party is being "attacked" and its voters are being defamed. Klamroth interjected: But didn't Bach himself say that the AfD is partly right-wing extremist? "Nobody here can hear that anymore. It may well be that some are. But the majority in our region are not," replied the mayor, who has been in office for over 30 years.

The journalist Gilda Sahebi accused the CDU/CSU in particular of supporting the AfD's view by focusing on migration - namely that the "migration problem" is a decisive cause of the country's problems. But if you talk to AfD voters, social problems such as high rents or high food prices are often the real reason for the dissatisfaction, said Sahebi. With a view to the USA , where many migrants voted for Donald Trump , she warned that extreme inequality in a society cannot be good in the long term.

Chancellor's Office Chief Schmidt warned Merz against "driving the whole thing straight into the wall" when it comes to migration policy. The Social Democrat demanded that the election winner be willing to compromise. "I very much hope that was election campaign noise," he replied to Klamroth's comment that Merz had announced that he would not make any concessions on his tough migration policy in a coalition.