It was a few rocky months for Christian Lindner, and for the German political system he gave chaos.
In November, Mr. Linder, who was the Federal Finance Minister, actually extended the fragile German government in an attempt to his political life. Counselor Olaf Schools faded to expel him from the ruling coalition.
Which started the surprise elections. This means that Mr. Lindner is the main reason for the country’s choice of a new parliament on Sunday, at a time of European and international turmoil in the first weeks of the new Trump administration, and not in the next fall as it is originally determined.
Mr. Lindandar’s move was an attempt to save his party, which retreated in opinion polls, from its association with an unpopular government. He was trying to avoid the temporary death penalty in federal policy. The question is whether to work.
In the last week of the campaign, Mr. Lindner and the Free Democrats in support remain less than 5 percent of the country’s support in most opinion polls. This is a decisive threshold in German policy. The result is above 5 percent, and your party enters Parliament. Below it is, and I was definitely outside.
However – given how Germany’s political system is organized – Mr. Lander maintains the opportunity to play the role of the maker of kings in forming the next government. He just needs to get rid of some support, somehow.
“He does not have good cards,” said Stefan Mirz, director of Infratest DIMAP, a Berlin polling company. “But it cannot be excluded.”
Mr. Lindner is a stranger in German policy, where there are abundant characters. He is fond of hunting and sports cars, with an aversion to Autobahn speed limits.
Mr. Lindner’s campaign rejected the interview requests from the New York Times. In an interview last fall with the PodCast Hotel Matze Hotel, shortly before the end of the ruling coalition, thought about both fans and critics.
“Those who say,” the last hope for bourgeois politics in Germany, the last economist in the free market in politics. “He added that critics call him government debt fetish, and” new and crushed exploiters. “
“I deal with it in a comfortable way,” he added.
The grandparents of Mr. Lindandar were bakers. His parents divorced when he was Young boy. His mother taught him to give priority to financial independence. From an early age, he was eager to move quickly.
video On YouTube A television program for young men registered in 1997, where Mr. Lindner, 18 -year -old, is wearing a suit with a wild tie of cows, talking about the advertising work he started with a friend. I gained it enough to buy the first Porsche at the age of twenty.
It was also a political miracle. Mr. Lindner joined the Free Democrats, or FDP, the Neolibral Party, which prefers low taxes on business and higher owners – and there are no speed limits on the highway – at the age of 16. At the age of 34, he became the youngest president in the party’s history, and returned it from the political wilderness.
After failing to win 5 percent of the 2013 German elections, the Free Democrats spent four years out of parliament. Mr. Lindner returned the party in 2017, although he withdrew from negotiations to join a ruler coalition with conservative Christian Democrats in Angela Merkel and the liberal Green Party. “He – she It is better not to judge the ruling wronglyMr. Lindner said at the time.
In 2021, Mr. Lindner helped the Free Democrats record 11 percent of the vote, partly by leading fees against government restrictions on daily life and economic activity. Join the social Democrats of Mr. Schulz and Greens in the so -called “Traffic Model” coalition. It has always been a troubled partnership, but it worsened with the stagnation of Germany’s economy and government approval reviews declined.
The fissure was opened: Mr. Scholz and Grens wanted to relax an end to government borrowing – known as debt brakes – for the economic growth of juice. Mr. Lindner refused.
He also saw fateful signs of voting. All the ruling parties have lost support, but among the three, the free democrats slipped only to less than 5 percent. Marcel Fratcher, head of the German Institute for Economic Research, said that the essence of his support is still “wealthy entrepreneurs in West Germany.
Mr. Lindner has developed a plan for the collapse of the government, in the hope of saving his party. Publicly, it started with a leakage document in which he demanded rapid changes from the Minister of Economy of the Green Party, Robert Habik and Mr. Schulz.
His requests included tax discounts, organizational relief and relaxation in some climate goals, which he said paid energy prices above. Mr. Schulz was daring to launch it. The next day to win President Trump in another term in the United States, Mr. Schools obliged, forcing the early elections in this process.
Days later, the Die Zeit newspaper revealed that free democratic leaders spent weeks prepared to violate coalition partners, including formulating a text for it. Mr. Lindner did not deny the report. He explained that his party was simply seeking Economic shift In order “To make Germany successful again.”
In a blatant statement defending the shooting, Mr. Schulz said that Mr. Lindner is only interested in his primary elections and “staying in the short term of his party.”
The political repercussions followed by the opening weeks of Mr. Trump’s administration, including the threats of customs tariffs on European exports and the decline in the US military security blanket that protects Germany since the end of World War II.
Mr. Lindandar tried to monopolize the free Democrats over the 5 percent line. In an early attempt to attract attention, posted on the social media platform X that Germany needed more sabotage thinking like billionaire Elon Musk. Mr. Musk instead supported a different party-the anti-immigrant alternative to Germany, or AFD-which is considered extremist parts by German intelligence agencies.
Mr. Lindner is still not interested in preaching the preaching of tax discounts and the abolition of restrictions, to defend the constitutional limit of Germany on government debts, and to get to know his former government partners to manage the economy.
The main parties said they will not invite AFD to the government. Therefore, Mr. Lander’s party may still engage a potential partner in the coalition of leading Christian Democrats and their adviser’s candidate, Fredchich Mirz. This may be valuable if the returns on Sunday are especially broken.
But at the present time, Mr. Mirz, who was a guest at the wedding of Mr. Lindner, does not tend his hand.
While Mr. Lindner was hovering a point less than 5 percent this month, Mr. Mirz was asked in an interview with the German media about the free democrats of Mr. Lindner. He said: “Four per cent,” four percent is too much. “