Tuesday 12 September 2017

wahlkampf

Weeks ahead of the relatively anodyne federal elections in Germany, we appreciated this retrospective on campaigning here from Rebecca Schuman (complete with pronunciation help)—where despite the fact that partisan battles are severely curtailed and essentially limited to poster format, there are no political television commercials and just a few government sanctioned debates, we have the gall to feign campaign fatigue. Though the incumbent can be assured of her re-election, there’s still much at stake, including battered relations with Turkey, and we ought not become complacent or disengaged. There are an awful lot of posters, however, as I suppose the one thing that’s not regulated and they’ve canvased every tree and lamp post—and those slogans and messenging are deserving are deserving of critique.