Frontrunner to replace Angela Merkel on back foot after Germany flood ‘sniggering’

Towns in Austria, Bavaria and eastern Germany have been hit by further flash floods as the favourite to succeed Angela Merkel as German chancellor was forced to apologise after being caught laughing and joking during a visit to a town devastated by the extreme weather.

Armin Laschet, who governs one of the worst-hit states, has been accused of a “tin-eared response to the disaster and a failure to take climate change seriously”, after his “ill-judged snickering” during a visit to a town south of Cologne, The Times reports.

“Until a few days ago his path to the chancellorship seemed assured,” the paper adds, but objections to his conduct during the trip to Erftstadt have “come to symbolise broader complaints” about the favourite to replace Merkel later this year.

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Sombre speech

As German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier addressed crowds in North Rhine-Westphalia, “Laschet could clearly be seen standing in the background, laughing at what appeared to be a private joke with colleagues”, The Telegraph reports.

Steinmeier was expressing his “condolences to victims of the storm” in the state where Laschet is minister-president, the paper adds. At least 45 people have been killed and others are missing in the western state that borders Belgium and the Netherlands.

Laschet had “interrupted a party meeting to attend flood-hit areas”, The Guardian says, but was put on the back foot “after seeming to make light of a catastrophic situation” that experts have warned will occur “more frequently because of climate change”.

Lars Klingbeil, general secretary of the centre-left Social Democratic Party (SPD), told German tabloid Bild that Laschet’s behaviour was “lacking in decency and appalling”, while broadcaster WDR said that every election campaign offered moments “in which the candidates show their true colours”, adding: “Today is such a moment.”

Laschet later tweeted an apology, stating: “The fate of those affected, which we heard about in many conversations, is important to us. So I regret all the more the impression that arose from a conversational situation. That was inappropriate and I am sorry.”

However, it is not the first time that Laschet’s “appearances have been heavily criticised”, The Times notes, after he last week “abandoned a campaign tour to visit the flooded towns of Hagen and Altena”. There were accusations that he patronised a TV presenter, calling her “young lady”. Supporters claimed he had forgotten her name.

‘Safe pair of hands’

Laschet was elected leader of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) in January and is the favourite to take over as chancellor after Germany goes to the polls in a national election in September.

But as a leader of one of the states hit hardest by the flooding, he “is being tested as a crisis manager and facing scrutiny over his stance on climate change” amid suggestions that he has only ever backed “half-hearted climate policies”, Politico reports.

Opinion polls had shown that the CDU was “well ahead” of the emergent Green Party, with Lachet’s “conservative bloc having a near 10-percentage-point lead” over their nearest rivals with two months to go until polling day, Deutsche Welle (DW) says.

However, the Greens, led by Annalena Baerbock, have “put climate change front and centre in their agenda to govern Germany”, the broadcaster adds, with the spate of destructive flooding looking likely to “revive” the issue on the campaign trail.

The CDU under Merkel has “pushed ahead with measures to mitigate climate change and invest in clean energy technologies”, Politico notes. However, Laschet has always “warned that green measures must not harm Germany’s major industries”.

“A crisis is always a moment for the executive,” Julius van de Laar, a political campaign strategist, told the site. “Thus, the way Laschet acted on Thursday, cancelling his trip to Bavaria and positioning himself as crisis manager and part of the executive, was the only right thing to do.”

But after his on-camera “sniggering”, what “looked like a chance to show that he was a safe pair of hands” may have turned into a mistake that could “benefit the Green party, which has avoided electioneering during the crisis”, The Times says.