Germany: six questions on decisive legislative elections for Merkel's succession

Hélène Kohl, in Berlin 7:02 am, September 24, 2021, modified at 7:06 am, September 24, 2021

For the first time in German history, the outgoing chancellor, in this case Chancellor Angela Merkel, is not running again, despite his popularity.

Three candidates are favorites for his succession: Armin Laschet, Olaf Scholz and Annalena Baerbock.

They will try to make a difference in the legislative elections on Sunday.

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Germany will turn a considerable page in its history this weekend: Angela Merkel, Chancellor since 2005, is not seeking her succession and it is therefore a new face that will lead the country after the parliamentary elections on Sunday .

A rare thing so late before the election, there are still three who really hope to seize power: the conservative Armin Laschet, the social democrat Olaf Scholz and the environmentalist Annalena Baerbock.

Overview, from Berlin, of the various things to know about this decisive election for Germany and very important for Europe.

Will the face of Merkel's successor be known on Sunday evening?

Sign of the completely new nature of this election, Sunday evening again, German television organized a debate between the three main candidates, the third in less than a month.

The Germans want continuity but the CDU and the SPD, which have governed together for the past eight years, find it difficult to differentiate themselves.

Result: with the scattering of votes, it will undoubtedly be necessary for three political parties to join forces to find a majority.

Everything will therefore be decided after the elections.

Sunday evening, it is likely that we can not give the name of Merkel's successor.

A priori, it will be a man, because the only woman in the running, the environmental candidate, Annalena Baerbock, has given way in recent weeks.

But a

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cannot be ruled out.

Besides, are there many undecided?

Yes.

The dilemma of German voters can easily be summed up.

Until now, when they were hesitant, they always ended up voting for Merkel.

This time around, one in three Germans is still undecided.

The three main candidates move in a range around 20% and there is a margin of error of 3 to 5 points.

"But the models of the polling institutes no longer work, everyone says so," says Frank Baasner, of the dpi institute.

"They calculate on traditions, the behavior of families, the behavior of social groups ... There, polls have never been so imprecise."

Everything will be decided after the election, during the coalition discussions.

Anything is possible, even if the winner on Sunday night is ultimately not the next Chancellor.

Will Armin Laschet's blunders make him fail?

On the one hand, there is Armin Laschet. The conservative CDU candidate had everything to become Angela Merkel's natural runner-up, but his strengths became his weaknesses. In his city of Aix-la-Chapelle, the capital of Charlemagne, of which he would be a distant descendant, he forged links with the Greens. But by dint of wanting to speak with everyone, Armin Laschet has lost credibility. During the health crisis, he constantly changed course in his Land of Rhineland and contradicts the Chancellor, of whom he is nevertheless a faithful.

But it is above all its lightness in the face of the mid-July floods in western Germany that has tarnished its reputation.

For this defender of coal, the tragedy, which killed nearly 200 people, does not justify changing the policy.

A disastrous little phrase uttered hours after being seen laughing in a bereaved village.

He has since lost 17 points in the polls.

Can the "automaton" Olaf Scholz win?

On the other, we find Olaf Scholz. The 63-year-old Social Democrat consolidated his favorite status on Sunday by winning in the last major televised debate. Whoever insists on his affiliation with the Chancellor is trying to restore color to the German left. In this campaign, the Germans found him a nickname: the "Scholzomat", because he is like an automaton, impassive in all circumstances, calm, reassuring and serious. A masculine Angela Merkel, notes a star TV columnist. "If he was a woman he would even wear his blazers," he jokes.

Olaf Schulz proposes an increase in the minimum wage and a wealth tax.

But its program is rather central.

Like Merkel, he refuses to allow Germany to go into debt.

He also finds it very good that there are common stability rules in Europe.

As for the climate, it sticks to the compromise negotiated last year with the right, which does not provide for an exit from coal until 2038. A continuity so assumed with the outgoing government that the Chancellor has had to hand over the money several times. church in the center of the village and remember that his real heir is Armin Laschet.

Can Annalena Baerbock's Greens create a surprise?

The climate is the first concern of the Germans in this campaign, especially after the deadly floods in mid-July. The Greens are expected to double their score in 2017. Their candidate sends back to back the parties that ruled together under Merkel. But Annalena Baerbock, 41, who has never held any political office except within her party, suffers from a lack of credibility and her atypical profile in this race. It presents a profile of rupture after the Merkel years, which confuses the Germans.

The environmental candidate tries to compensate for this with a very technical speech on the responses to the climate challenge.

It is based on the record of his party in the industrial Land of Baden-Württemberg, which he has led for ten years, without having slowed down the development of groups like Daimler or Bosch.

The German Greens are realists who want to govern and can ally themselves with the right as with the left.

Why is the far right of the AfD absent from this campaign?

One party is rather absent from the debate this year: the AfD, a far-right party that has become radicalized in recent years. Indeed, his favorite themes, such as immigration, are ultimately no longer successful: in the list of concerns of the Germans for this campaign, immigration comes in seventh position. Half of the refugees in 2015 work on permanent contracts, 98% of the children go to school and every weekend, they arrive by whole buses from all over Germany to help rebuild the flooded areas in mid-July.

Deprived of this theme, the AfD party therefore chose radicalization to make itself heard.

He endorsed the discourse of the conspirators during the pandemic against the vaccine or against the barrier gestures.

He also assumes his rapprochement with the neo-Nazis, whose rhetoric he takes up, calling for ridding Germany of its parasites or of its traitors like Merkel.

In the east, this discourse hits the mark in all age groups, but these are depopulated regions that do not have much weight at the national level.