Schultz surprised the Bundestag, the union fighter

Olaf Schultz, the candidate for the Social Democratic chancellor, testified yesterday before the Finance Committee regarding investigations against the money laundering authorities.

© AFP/Schwartz

By Gabriel Stark

BERLIN – While little noticed on the campaign trail two months ago, even a year ago he smiled as he described himself as the candidate for chancellor, Olaf Scholz has now been the center of attention for two weeks. The SPD owns the Trielle – a German word created for the fact that three candidates instead of two for the chancellor’s match in television appearances – have clearly won in opinion polls. Also in the polls, the Social Democrats (25 percent) are still ahead of the CDU/CSU (22 percent) and far behind the Greens with Annalena Barbock (16 percent).

But the union with Armin Laschet again attracts hope or does not want to give up the last glimmer of it. After all, one of them recently slipped below the 20 percent limit in surveys.

Markus Söder, president of the CSU, confirmed Monday after a meeting of his party’s board of directors in Munich that elections have not yet taken place – it will be the final blink of an eye. “The downtrend has stalled for the past few weeks,” Sodder said. CSU will now fight for every vote until the election. He accused the SPD and the Greens of being too confident of winning: “It’s like football: if you think you’ve already won in the 80th minute, sometimes you face a black miracle at the end.”

But for their confidence, CDU and CSU rely less on their own ideas. Instead, they hope that home inspections at the Ministry of Finance, whose owner Olaf Schultz, will now prevent many voters from giving the SPD their second vote.

Background: An investigation against the Money Laundering Unit, the Financial Intelligence Unit, of the Ministry of Finance. It is said that FIU officials are not always suspected of money laundering. In the Ministries of Finance and Justice, the Public Prosecutor’s Office in Osnabrück wanted to examine FIU documents through search.

The union and the opposition also expressed their hope that Finance Minister Schulz’s popularity in the Bundestag Finance Committee, which met yesterday to investigate the FIU, would be severely affected. But instead of being tested via a video link, the candidate for chancellor appeared in person before the commission, to the astonishment of the political competition. Schulz used it to present his view of matters, which was how much money laundering has been done in recent years thanks to his commitment.

Foam union and opposition. Laschet identified the lack of clarification on Schultz. After all, it has long been clear that “Germany is not in an ideal position when it comes to money laundering,” said the union candidate, who has been chancellor for 16 years. The Green Party accused the Social Democrats of filming themselves. Shults put a smile on his face in light of the campaign finals or even took it as an admission.