Germany’s Social Democrat (SPD) chancellor hopeful Martin Schulz used a barnstorming Ash Wednesday beer tent address to prove that you don’t need alcohol to have a good time.
The ex-European Parliament president and former alcoholic embraced Germany’s traditional pre-Lent beer tent tradition for a few broadsides at chancellor Angela Merkel and her prickly conservative ally in Bavaria, Horst Seehofer.
“Seehofer and Merkel are living in a forced marriage,” joked Mr Schulz to lusty cheers from 5,000 supporters in a packed tent in rural Bavaria, about 1,000 more than Mr Seehofer’s CSU could muster.
The arrival of Mr Schulz from Brussels has shaken up Germany’s political scene and, six months before federal elections, opinion polls give his previously ailing party an unprecedented eight-point shot in the arm.
That surge in support means that the SPD is now neck-and-neck with – and in two polls ahead of – the Merkel-Seehofer CDU/CSU alliance.
Anxious to keep the euphoria going, Mr Schulz – a teetotaller since 1980 – delighted drinkers by likening Mr Seehofer, and his love of populist exaggeration, to Donald Trump.
Trump criticism
The new Oval Office occupant got a lash, too. Anyone who wanted to build walls, undermined women’s rights or slandered the disabled or minorities “has to be criticised”.
“That goes for the newly elected president of the United States,” shouted Mr Schulz, criticising Mr Trump’s “fake news” attacks on the US media as “taking an axe to the root of democracy”.
Recalling his own personal battle with the bottle, the SPD candidate said: “I know what it’s like to lose direction . . . but I also know how great it feels when one’s closest friends stand by, to get a second chance.”
Mixing the personal and political – and repeating promises to correct welfare reforms for older workers and the unemployed – the Schulz address went down well with the supporters, who put down their beer glasses every minute to clap and cheer “Martin, Martin Martin!” in the SPD’s fullest Ash Wednesday tent in memory.
“He’s thinking of the little people who work hard, who’ve been forgotten, and that goes down well with us,” said party supporter Alois Fischer in the SPD tent in Vilshofen.
Austrian visitor
As his warm-up act, Mr Schulz booked Austria’s Social Democrat chancellor Christian Kern, who slated Mr Trump’s “reality show” White House and mocked French populist Marine Le Pen as “Madame Trump with a baguette under her arm”.
The Austrian visitor predicted Mr Schulz would score big in September because his promise of fairness for working people struck a chord all over Europe. With an eye on multinational companies, Mr Kern noted that “every sausage stand in Vienna pays more tax” than Cork-based Apple.
Some 20km away, at another tent in Passau, CSU leaders went to great efforts to display their lack of concern about the looming Schulz challenge.
CSU leader Horst Seehofer, who only grudgingly set aside his refugee gripes with Dr Merkel for the looming campaign, said he had no problem with Mr Trump’s “America first” politics. The Bavarian leader said he also pursued a political goal: Bavaria first.
“For me personally, the state on which I swore an oath always comes first,” said Mr Seehofer.
Meanwhile, Austria’s populist Freedom Party (FPÖ) leader, Karl-Heinz Strache, was guest of honour in the tent of Germany’s far-right Alternative für Deutschland (AfD).
Like many visitors to Germany, Mr Strache overestimated the locals’ capacity for edgy humour with a dig about immigrant settlements in their adoptive home. Italian immigrants settled in Little Italy, he noted, while Chinese set up Chinatown.
“And the Muslims?” he asked. “No-go areas.”
