Christian Linder - leader in time of crisis?

Source: Ergebnisse der Landtagswahlen in NordrheinWestfalen,http://www.wahlrecht.de/ergebnisse/nordrhein-westfalen.htm (13 Oct 2016)

Political beliefs

Ch. Lindner admired the FDP thinkers. He also realised that some German politicians, for example Helmut Schmidt and Richard von Weizsacker, were highly respected because the public valued "experience, excellence, credibility" [8, p. 144]. Ch. Lindner read the works of Karl-Hermann Flach, Ralf Dahrendorf and Friedrich August von Hayek. He also referred to other masters when he spoke of his vision of liberal policy, especially the President of Western Germany Theodor Heuss and the Foreign Minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher, who was his political master. Lindner emphasised Genscher's contribution to the unification of Germany and European integration. The cooperation between Lindner and Genscher was very effective. The two politicians published an extended interview titled "Building Bridges. Two generations, one passion". In the book, they shared their insights on the future of Europe, a vision of the economy in the Federal Republic of Germany and programme work at the Free Democratic Party. After Genscher died on 31 March 2016 Lindner called for the continuation of foreign policy in "Genscher's tradition." Thus, he has been a supporter of genscherism, which is expressed in the Europeanization of German policy [8].

Lindner also admired Guido Westerwelle primarily for his activity in the 1990s. He believed that the FDP election campaign in 1994, when the Liberals were led by Klaus Kinkel, was "humiliating" [21, p. 10], and Westerwelle was the one who saved the image of the FDP. Westerwelle's success was the approval of the 1997 Wiesbaden

Programme, which anticipated the strengthening of civil society in Germany. Lindner understood the importance of civil society. He understood that in the future churches and trade unions, along with political parties, would play important roles in the political system. Expressing satisfaction at the development of direct democracy he was of the opinion that it should not eliminate representative democracy, but complement it.

As for modern liberals acting in the international arena, Lindner praised Alexander Graf Lambsdorff, who had experience in relations with Moscow. A. Graf Lambsdorff also gained experience while being a member of the European Parliament, where he was engaged in foreign policy [14].

Lindner believed that the FDP programme could be fitted into a triangle made up of the market economy, the rule of law and open society " [16]. He pointed out that freedom should takes precedence over equality, but opted for intergenerational justice and respect for the principle of sustainable development. He defined freedom after the sociologist Ralf Dahrendorf as "the sum of life chances" [21,

p.19], and added: "those who are afraid of illness, old age, social exclusion and discrimination are not free" [21, p. 19).

While Philipp Rцsler persuaded the Germans to opt for "compassionate liberalism", Lindner believed that the liberal programme should take into account the thoughts of Adam Smith and be an expression of the responsibility for the next generation. Lindner stressed: "I am a liberal. Full stop" [15].

After Walter Scheel, T. Heuss, H.-D. Genscher, Klaus Kinkel and Guido Westerwelle, Lindner is an advocate of European integration. Despite the economic crisis and the citizens' resentment towards the European Union he sees advantages in the integration process. Referring to Theodor Heuss's metaphore according to which Europe is based on the "three mountains - Golgotha, the Acropolis Hill and the Capitoline Hill" Lindner emphasized that the European Union was a community of values. In his opinion, the European Union is more than a free trade zone. He admits that in Germany a "profound loss of confidence in the social market economy" has occurred [8, p. 93; 14]. But against the critics of the market economy he emphasizes its advantages and but opts for reforms. He supported the use of new solutions in the market economy, e.g. the model of flexicurity, which had been successfully introduced in Denmark The Danish solution was based on a combination of the standards of flexibility and security in the labour policy. According to Lindner opportunities for development should be guaranteed to citizens. For this purpose he advocates building a knowledge society. He is of the opinion that nowadays the loss of skills is "a new risk, next to unemployment, sickness, accident or care needs" [8, p. 112].

On the initiative of Ch. P. Lindner and P. Rцsler the Liberals developed a new programme after the Bundestag election in 2009. The work lasted till 21 and 22 April 2012. The Liberals passed "Karlsruhe Theses: Responsibility for freedom - for an open civil society" [11]. They wanted to create a document that would reflect the ideas of Wilhelm Rцpke, Friedrich-August von Hayek, John Locke, John Stuart Mill, as well as the previous FDP programmes. The ambition of the Liberals was to update the earlier programme works and adapt them to current challenges in the internal and international policy.

Ch. Lindner listed an increase in world population, globalization, digitalisation and social changes caused by aging and immigration as the most important challenges in 2015 [1].

The fight for leadership

2009 was an important year for the FDP. They won 14.6% of the votes in the Bundestag election. After the election, the coalition agreement between the CDU / CSU and FDP was made. Angela Merkel negotiated 5 minister offices for the Liberals. Guido Westerwelle was appointed the Vice-Chancellor and Foreign Minister. P. Rцsler joined the government as the Minister of Health, Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger became the Minister of Justice, Rainer Brьderle was the Minister of Economy and Dirk Niebel was the Minister of Development. When Lindner came to Berlin after winning parliamentary elections in 2009, he began his cooperation with P. Rцsler. Ch. Lindner noticed that they both had come to the capital from other regions - P. Rцsler was from Lower Saxony, and Ch. Lindner from North Rhine Westphalia. Although Ch. Lindner was engaged in election campaigns in North Rhine Westphalia in the nineties, 2012 was of particular importance in his political career, when a new election was announced in the federal state. The head of the FDP fraction in the Landtag Gerhard Papke supported the dissolution of the federal state parliament of North Rhine Westphalia, The reason for the decision to hold the new election were conflicts over the budget. The government led by the Socio-Democrat Hannerole Kraft received no support. At that point Lindner decided to return to Dьsseldorf from Berlin. His decision to return to North Rhine Westphalia met with the approval of Hans-Dietrich Genscher, who praised Lindner for his sense of responsibility for the region. The master of the young politician recalled that "a weight was lifted from his heart" [8, p. 50; 14, p. 97-100], when he found out that Ch. Lindner would lead the election campaign. During the election Lindner opted for the social market economy. On election posters he placed the slogan: "solid finances instead of cheap promises", "New election rather than new debts". The SDP won again in the election, but the Liberals had their 22 representatives in the federal state parliament after winning 8.6% of the votes. Ch. Lindner gained experience in running the election campaign in that industrialized federal state [8, p. 49, 51].

Ch. Lindner was recommended as the head of the FDP after the defeat of the party in the parliamentary election of 22 September 2013. For the first time in the history of postwar Germany the party became the non-parliamentary opposition. The FDP lost arena where they could present their opinions. On 7 December 2013 the FDP congress was held in Berlin, at which the chairman P. Rцsler handed over power. The fight for leadership of the FDP was lost by the older generation of the FDP as their candidate - Rainer Brьderle did not gain many supporters. A candidate to chair the Liberals Ch. Lindner presented his programme in which he declared that the FDP should be:

- the party that would support the market economy;

- the party that would promote civil rights;

- the party that would support private ownership;

- the party that would support fair measure of achievements;

- the pro-European party;

- the party that would be open to people "regardless of race, income and profession";

- the party that in the past strove for the reunification of Germany [17].

The federal election in Germany is scheduled for the autumn 2017 and in May 2017 the senate election will be held in North Rhine Westphalia. It is Ch. Lindner's responsibility to improve the image of the FDP among voters and prepare the party for the next parliamentary elections in 2017 and support politicians in the fight for power in the regions and the seats in the European Parliament. Ch. Lindner stressed that the FDP should face modern challenges and "from the perspective of freedom respond to current questions [8, p. 34].

During the 67th FDP Congress, held from 21 to 24 April 2016 in Berlin, the FDP supported the idea of building the "Beta Republic of Germany". The distinguishing feature of the Beta republic should be modernity. The term Beta was taken from the computer industry and the Liberals decided to use it to promote the modernization of the FDP. They made digitalisation one of the main topics claiming that it would give the society a chance to develop [10; 12].

The Liberals are also trying not to be perceived by the public as the "party of one topic," i.e. tax lowering. Ch. Lindner also emphasises that the European Union is facing identity and structural problems, which is the capital for politicians from the Alternatives for Germany (AFD) or the United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP) in the fight for voters. Commenting on the success of the AFD he points out that Germany needs the third way. In his opinion neither the policy of limitless openness towards immigrants, nor the isolation and closing borders is a beneficial solution. Therefore, Lindner criticized Chancellor Angela Merkel. He believed that there were limits to Germany bearing responsibility for the migration crisis as well as the economic crisis. However, he was also aware that the policy of open doors for immigrants represented by the FDP politician Frank Sitta in Saxony-Anhalt had failed. Ch. Lindner believed that the statements of some AfD politicians resembled the language of the Nazis. In his opinion, apart from "core voters who had right-wing radical views," there were many people among the AfD supporters who wanted to express protest against the situation in Germany, but they were not radicals [18]. On 6 January 2015, during the FDP meeting traditionally organized on Three Kings' Day, Lindner pointed out that : "the AfD is not a substitute for the FDP. The AfD is the contrary of everything that is sacred for us liberals" [20].

In his work programme for North Rhine Westphalia Lindner mainly addressed educational issues, building an open society and health policy. He pointed out that North Rhine Westphalia was a highly industrialized federal state, hence environmental policy was of great importance. His involvement brought profits.

For the 2017 election "Project Lindner 17" was prepared. The name referred to the Liberals' previous election campaigns. Owing to the effective campaign run by J. Mцllemann the FDP won 9.8% of the votes in the 2000 election to the Senate in North Rhine Westphalia.

G. Westerwelle decided to increase his success in the local politics and using his experience he suggested "Project 18" in the 2002 election campaign for the Bundestag. He wanted to gain 18% of the votes [4, p. 134]. Analogously to the ideas of J. Mцllemann and taking into account the date of the upcoming elections Ch. Lindner started "Project Lindner 17". He wants to start the fight for the Bundestag votes during the senate campaign in North Rhine - Westphalia. However, the FDP started their fight to return to the Bundestag in October 2013. Initially, they lost in Saxony (31 August 2014), Brandenburg (14 September 2014), and Thuringia (14 September 2014). In May 2014 the Liberals won only 3.4% of the votes in the European Parliament election, but because the 5% threshold was abolished in that election Alexander Graf Lambsdorff, Gesine Meissner and Michael Theurer became the FDP representatives in the European Parliament.

In the elections to the Senates of the federal states that followed the European Parliament election the FDP situation became very dynamic. The string of failures was broken in the election to the Senate of Hamburg (15 February 2015) and Bremen (10 May 2015). The election campaign in Hamburg was run by Katja Suding, and the campaign in Bremen by Lenck Steiner. The two politicians cooperated with Ch. Lindner, who supported their election campaigns. The press called K. Suding,

L. Steiner and Nicola Beer "Lindner's Angels" for the effective usage of public relations techniques in the fight for the votes for the FDP. The Liberals exceeded the 5% threshold in Rhineland Palatinate (13 March 2016) and in Baden-Wьrttemberg (13 March 2016). Lindner was satisfied with the success of the liberal Volker Wissing in Rhineland Palatinate, who contributed to the creation of the so-called "traffic lights" coalition government (SPD-FDP-Die Grьnen) after the election, with V. Wissing as the deputy prime minister. However, the Liberals lost the next elections held in eastern federal states, despite the fact that the federal structures supported the regional candidates. The Liberals did not exceed the 5% threshold in Saxony-Anhalt (13 March 2016) and Mecklenburg-Vorpommern (4 September 2016). The situation improved only in the senate election in Berlin (18 September 2016), when they won 6.7% of the votes [7].

Table 2. The FDP election results in federal states after the 22 Sep 2013