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Merkel abandons handpicked Successor, CDU Criticizes Young Youtubers


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2019 May 28, 11:43am   495 views  2 comments

by MisdemeanorRebel   ➕follow (12)   💰tip   ignore  

Told a Tranny Joke.

(Bloomberg) -- Angela Merkel has given up hope on her heir apparent and is hunkering down in office in the face of growing turmoil in Germany’s ruling party.

Merkel has decided that Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, who took over as leader of the Christian Democratic Union in December, is not up to the country’s top job, according to two officials with knowledge of her thinking. As a result, the chancellor has become more determined than ever to stay in power until her term ends in 2021, the officials said.

In recent months AKK, as Kramp-Karrenbauer is known, slid in opinion polls, roiled the party with a failed effort to accelerate Merkel’s exit, and on Sunday oversaw the CDU’s worst ever result in a national election.

AKK’s failure to grasp the baton leaves Germany’s governing party flailing as the leadership prepares to meet June 2 and 3 to pore over the losses in the European Union election.

It’s likely to be an awkward encounter between the chancellor and her one-time protegee: AKK convened the session without warning Merkel and the officials say it was designed to put pressure on the chancellor to move aside. AKK has also alienated the chancellor by reaching out to her conservative enemies within the CDU.

No More Help

Merkel has resolved to spend no more political capital helping AKK, the officials said. But her ability to change the party’s direction is limited now that she has handed over control of the machinery. The chancellor is expecting to come under more pressure to step aside as AKK’s political problems mount, they added.

The direction of the party is completely open again, one official said, and what happens after 2021 is entirely uncertain.

With AKK’s chances of claiming the chancellorship fading, the contest to select the CDU’s candidate for 2021 becomes a re-run of last year’s succession battle. Merkel’s moderate faction thought they had won when AKK claimed the party leadership in December but the chancellor’s ability to influence that process will be much reduced second time around. That could open the door to the conservative Friedrich Merz or the liberal Armin Laschet.

AKK’s approval rating slipped three points to 36% in the latest poll by public broadcaster ARD released May 2. That’s the lowest since she became party leader and almost 20 points behind Merkel.

Off-Color Joke

AKK was supposed to provide fresh leadership and an electoral bounce for the CDU after 18 years of Merkel’s leadership. Instead, support for the party and its Bavarian sister the CSU fell seven percentage points in the EU election to below 30%. Many voters defected to the Greens, which doubled their backing to more than 20%.

AKK has proved prone to stumbles.

An off-color joke about transsexuals at a local festival put moderates on alert. Her latest mistake came in the aftermath of Sunday’s election.


When a YouTube video attacking the CDU became a viral sensation, AKK accused the 70 web activists who endorsed the clip of wielding undue influence and was forced onto the defensive following a wave of criticism.

She tweeted on Monday that it was “absurd to accuse me of wanting to regulate statements of opinion.”


If nothing else, the episode highlighted the CDU’s desperate attempts to reach younger voters with its own forays into the digital realm. As of Tuesday, the video by a blue-haired moderator known as Rezo has been viewed more than 12 million times since it hit the web May 18.

(Replaces a previous version that corrected the date of an AKK tweet.)

http://www.focus-fen.net/news/2019/05/28/440004/afp-merkels-successor-sparks-freedom-of-speech-uproar.html

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1   MisdemeanorRebel   2019 May 28, 11:46am  

AKK, Merkel's handpicked successor, hates Youtubers:

Addressing the debacle on Monday night, Kramp-Karrenbauer called for checks on the online influencers, saying that if 70 newspaper editors had made a concerted call to boycott parties ahead of an election, that would be classed "clearly as propaganda".

"The question is... what are rules from the analogue realm and which rules should apply to the digital realm?

"I'll tackle this discussion quite aggressively," said Kramp-Karrenbauer, or AKK as she is dubbed in Germany.

Her comments immediately unleashed a storm on social media with #AKKRuecktritt (AKKresign), #annegate and #AKKgate making up the top three topics trending on Twitter in Germany.

Kramp-Karrenbauer then took to Twitter to defend her comments, saying it was "ridiculous to insinuate that I want to regulate expressions of opinion".

"Freedom of opinion is a precious value in a democracy.

"What we have to talk about are rules that apply during elections," she wrote on Twitter.

But that only fanned the fires, with both leading media and political figures rounding in to remind her of article five in the German constitution guaranteeing freedom of opinion, speech and writing.

"With her insulting musings on 'propaganda' and control of it, Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer confirms the criticism of young YouTubers -- and reveals her authoritarian thinking," said Spiegel Online.

https://www.france24.com/en/20190528-merkel-partys-battle-with-youtubers-escalates
2   mell   2019 May 28, 1:28pm  

AKK is terrible but at least she told a tranny joke. Anyways only the AFD is determined to stem the flood of rapefugees and thus currently the only choice for Germans. They get the Nazi treatments similar to the shrieking leftoids wrt Trump but have grown in popularity despite so far.

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