German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has “almost autistic traits,” according to German liberal EU election lead candidate Marie-Agnes Strack-Zimmermann.
“After three years, I’ve realized that he has almost autistic traits, both in terms of his social contacts in politics and his inability to explain his actions to citizens,” Strack-Zimmermann, a longtime critic of Scholz, said in an interview published Wednesday.
The remarks, which are likely to prove highly controversial and offensive, land just days before Germans go to the polls for the European election.
Strack-Zimmermann, who is the lead candidate for the German Free Democratic Party in the EU election, has often lambasted the chancellor for his hesitant approach toward sending military aid to Ukraine
“You can’t get through to him because he is glaringly self-righteous,” Strack-Zimmermann said, adding that even the chancellor’s fellow party members think so.
She accused Scholz of copying his predecessor Angela Merkel and basing policies on polls, only doing what is popular with the public.
“He shapes policy exclusively according to polls,” Strack-Zimmermann said. It isn’t the job of a politician to tell people what they want to hear, she said, “but to shape policy and explain it to his fellow citizens.”
Strack-Zimmermann wasn’t finished there, also having a dig at European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen.
If the German electorate vote for the Christian Democrats, she warned, “they get Ursula von der Leyen, and nothing will change in Brussels.”
But if they vote for Strack-Zimmermann’s FDP, people can expect “less bureaucracy and a stronger Europe in an increasingly complicated world,” she vowed.
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