Historic elections in Germany to succeed Angela Merkel

BERLIN – German voters have heard all the proposals regarding Angela Merkel’s replacement and are finally getting closer to her historic election on Sunday: paving the way for a new chancellor after her 16-year term and shaping both the country’s policy that broader European affairs.

With the decision of Merkel, 67, not to stand for election, the elections are the first in post-war German history in which a chancellor has not run for office.

“It’s a tough choice,” said Sudha David-Wilp, deputy director of the Berlin office of the German Marshall Fund. “It is a choice of change not only for Germany, but for Europe and therefore for the whole world,” he said, citing how much the outgoing decade-and-a-half chancellor has raised the role of Berlin in international politics.

The chancellery appears to be within the reach of two men, both in their sixties, who represent the two most established parties in the country.

The first is Olaf Scholz, 63, of the center-left Social Democratic Party (SPD), who tried to present himself as Merkel’s natural successor after going through the last coalition cabinet as economy minister and vice-chancellor. His dry and technocratic political style could have convinced the Germans who are looking for a firm hand.

It is also Armin Laschet, 60, Merkel’s Christian Democrats candidate and her little brother from the party. Head of state of North Rhine-Westphalia, Laschet has led an error-prone campaign and is unpopular with voters, but has the advantage of having a stronger center-right support base.

In the last days, Laschet approached Scholz in the polls. Polling firm Forsa predicted on Friday that Laschet’s bloc would get 22% of the vote, compared with 25% for Scholz’s Social Democrats, putting the advantageous position within the margin of error.

The German Greens, whose campaign was led by Annalena Baerbock, 40, would get 17%, according to the poll. It would be their best ever result, but it’s still a significant drop from the start of the year when they led the polls.

Many Germans still don’t know who to vote for. And most of the undecided people say they are insecure because they are not convinced by any of the main candidates.

“It’s a generational change after 16 years of just one person in power,” David-Wilp said. “I think for this reason alone the Germans are not sure who would be the appropriate successor to Angela Merkel.”

The winner will first have to take up the challenge of forming a government coalition. No party should get a majority in parliament, which means that at least two – if not three – parties will have to come together to form a coalition government. It could mean lengthy talks and Merkel will remain the leader as it unfolds.

“We have an exceptional situation,” said Isabelle Borucki, professor of political science who teaches at the University of Siegen. Germany “has never had such a fragmented party landscape, with so many parties so close in the polls, ”he added. “The closer the results of the parties, the more difficult the coalition negotiations will be because no one will be able to fully claim the leadership.”

When the form of government is clear, Merkel’s successor will have to try to lead Germany and Europe through a myriad of challenges. Among them, foreign policy decisions on how balance trade interests with Russia and China with concerns about expansionism, human rights, and destabilizing activities such as piracy.

At the national level, the question will arise whether Germany should continue to borrow to invest in infrastructure and digitization, an issue that came to the fore during the pandemic as the country’s weaknesses were exposed.

But being constrained by coalition politics, governing will be difficult, said Rüdiger Schmitt-Beck, professor of politics at the University of Mannheim, referring to the possibility that the negotiations drag on.

“There will be a tendency to stand still, to unconvincing compromises, not to solve problems,” he said. “The system’s ability to meet the challenges it faces will be weakened.”

With everything at stake, the main candidates came out on Saturday to try to win over undecided voters in their home constituencies. Laschet appeared alongside the outgoing chancellor in his hometown of Aachen on the western border of Germany in hopes that some of his continued popularity could fuel his struggling campaign.

Merkel, who had been criticized for not supporting Laschet more strongly during the campaign, urged voters to vote for him.

“Sometimes in these campaigns you can come to think that it doesn’t matter who is running Germany at the time,” he said. “I want to tell you, based on my experience, that in the political life of a chancellor there are always times when he is anything but insignificant who rules.”

“That’s what tomorrow will be all about,” he said.

Laschet waged a faltering campaign strewn with errors, the most damaging of which was an incident in which he was filmed laughing during a tribute to victims of the devastating summer floods in Germany.

In recent days, he has insisted to voters that a victory for the Social Democrats could mean a coalition including the far-left Die Linke party, stigmatized by much of German society because of Die’s roots. Linke in the party he governed. .

Scholz has not ruled out such a constellation, although he says it is not his preference.

This message has penetrated some. “This year we have to choose the lesser evil,” said Karin, 64, who was visiting Stralsund in Merkel constituency earlier this week to see the Chancellor appear alongside Laschet. He did not want to give his last name to talk about the meaning of his vote: for the Laschet bloc even if he considered that “he does not really belong to politics”.

“He doesn’t have the capacity to get things done,” he said. “He doesn’t even know how to deal with his condition.

But he was too concerned that voting for someone other than the Christian Democrats could signify the far left in a governing coalition.

On Saturday, Scholz and Baerbock gathered support in Potsdam, the river capital of the German state of Brandenburg, just 25 kilometers south-east of Berlin, where the two candidates are running for the seat.

“I hope the result is better than it looks,” Scholz told a small crowd who had gathered in a square in the north of the city to watch him answer questions. “I’m expecting a big jump for the SPD, and it can happen with all your help.”

The center-left Social Democrats won the most votes here in 2017, and voters like Christian Gottschling, a 49-year-old lawyer, were less swayed by the dire warnings about a left-wing coalition.

That would be “ideal,” he said, as he passed a row of campaign stalls where party officials handed out leaflets on a tree-lined pedestrian alley in the city on Saturday.

“We need a change,” he said. “I don’t have much hope that this will be a big change, but at least a step in the right direction for the future.”

Michael Schönherr, 42, a business consultant in Potsdam, said he was not happy with either of the two options and was going to vote for “the less bad”, but declined to say how he was doing. vote.

“These are not optimal choices for me, and neither are the candidates,” he said. “The parties are too consumed by themselves and not by what is happening in the country.”

He criticized the Christian Democrats, whom he voted for on other occasions, for campaigning out of fear of the left and not out of his own ideas.

“This time it’s more difficult to decide,” he said.

(c) 2021, The Washington Post – By Loveday Morris and Rick Noack

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