MILAN (ITALPRESS) – Germany’s Feb. 23 elections are highly anticipated both to understand the economic direction of the “locomotive of Europe” that has been struggling for months and to assess the extent of a possible far-right assertion. The elections were called last Dec. 27 before the natural end of the legislature by President of the Republic Frank-Walter Steinmeier after the collapse in November of the government led by Social Democratic Chancellor Olaf Scholz. Formed in 2021, the so-called “semaphore coalition” brought together the Social Democrats (SPD), the Liberals (FDP) and the Greens. The political crisis was triggered by disagreements between Scholz and Liberal leader Christian Lindner over the budget law and whether to go beyond austerity rules. The main parties in the race are: CDU-CSU (Christian Democratic Union and Bavarian Christian Social Union), center-right with candidate for chancellor Friedrich Merz; SPD, which has advanced Olaf Scholz’s re-election bid; AFD (Alternative Für Deutschland), a far-right formation led by Alice Weidel; Die Linke, a left-wing formation with Jan van Aken and Heidi Reichinnek; the Greens, with Robert Habeck; the BSW, a new radical left party with its leader Sahra Wagenknecht; and the Liberals with Christian Lindner.
At the center of the political debate are economic issues, especially because of the sharp slowdown in the German economy whose GDP has been negative for the past two years. Germany’s crisis was caused by rising energy prices after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, a halt to gas supplies from Russia of which Germany was the main beneficiary, rising inflation, and finally the threat of tariffs by newly elected U.S. President Donald Trump. The war in Ukraine was mainly addressed in light of a possible reduction in U.S. support and on the danger of Europe remaining excluded from peace talks with Russia. A more than real possibility after US Vice President J D Vance’s statements at the Munich security conference. Another hot topic was immigration. This topic was much exploited in the election campaign by far-right leader Alice Weidel, who on more than one occasion spoke not only of border controls and rejections, but also of “re-migration” of migrants who had come to Germany. Moreover, the debate on this issue has been heavily influenced by the attacks in Magdeburg in December and in Munich last week.
But it is precisely the AFD, which polls give as the second largest political force around 20 percent of the vote, that has capitalized on itself. Since the postwar period, Germany’s main democratic parties have always maintained a “cordon sanitaire” to exclude far-right formations from government posts. However, in recent years AFD has seen its support grow in several regional consultations, reaching 15.89 percent of the vote in the 2024 European elections. But the climate has become incandescent after criticism of the German political system and explicit endorsements to the far right by Vice President Vance and especially Tesla and X CEO Elon Musk. In reaction, massive demonstrations in recent weeks have brought hundreds of thousands of people to squares across Germany to shout their opposition to any collaboration with AFD. Polling stations will be open Sunday from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m.
– IPA Agency Photos –
(ITALPRESS).
