The Chancellor has seldom been as present as in the corona pandemic – and yet the satisfaction of the population with the crisis management is falling. It would help to admit mistakes made.
A comment by Kai Küstner, ARD capital studio
“Please join in! Don’t let up now!” Health Minister Jens Spahn has also tried ‘verbal doping’ again: He is trying to motivate the Germans, who are increasingly tired from Corona measures, again.
In any case, it is not because the political elite does not communicate sufficiently with the people. We have seldom seen a government or a Chancellor with so much need to speak. And that’s right. If Angela Merkel had presented and explained her refugee policy to the population in as much detail as she does now with her Corona policy – perhaps the AfD would never have become so strong.
Satisfaction with the crisis management decreases
Now, five years ago, the Chancellor, which was far too taciturn, is omnipresent. Within a year she has sat in front of the assembled capital city press four times. Addressed the nation in televised speeches, answered questions in the Bundestag – at times unusually emotional.
Nevertheless, satisfaction with the crisis management of the federal and state governments is falling. Are the – in spite of everything, inevitable and necessary – anti-corona measures perceived as “increasing impertinence”?
One of the reasons for this is that they are, of course, too: the artist who has not been able to perform for almost a year, the restaurant owner who does not know whether he will ever be able to open again; the parents, for whom the kitchen desk has become a desk and who have to juggle with homework and housework, with children and video conferences.
The federal and state governments have to admit mistakes
On the other hand, successful crisis management has a lot to do with trust. And that could be strengthened if the federal and state governments would finally admit mistakes made:
For example, that in October and November the danger was not fully understood and the impression was given that with a few weeks of “buttocks squeezing”, as the President of the Robert Koch Institute once put it, the matter would be over again. For example, that in almost a year it has not been possible to work out a reasonable timetable with which not only the windows in the schools but also their gates can be reopened.
And finally: The realization that it was of course right to outsource the purchase of vaccines to the negotiating EU and not to organize it nationally and egoistically. But the credibility of both Brussels and Berlin would be considerably increased if one were to admit in clear words in both capitals that in the race for the right vaccines with far too little money, in some cases, they are falling for the wrong horses – in other words: manufacturers – has set. And that this is also one of the reasons why people over 80 are trying in vain and increasingly desperate to get a vaccination appointment these days.
The federal government, the state governments have done so much right in this pandemic – almost everything by summer 2020 – that they could now admit mistakes. That would be a much better pick-me-up if it would help the Germans over their increasing corona exhaustion much sooner than repeated slogans to keep going.
