Angela Merkel is the woman who has been at the helm of a country in Europe the longest, she has been the German Chancellor for 16 years compared to the 11 that Margaret Thatcher was the premier of the United Kingdom. After the elections this Sunday , the German will leave the presidency. He will be in office only until there is a government agreement, a government outside the current grand coalition , which the two major German parties reject.
Around 60.4 million Germans are called to the polls, almost 1.3 million fewer than in the 2017 elections, which resulted in a repetition of the grand coalition between the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) -Unión Social Cristiana bloc ( CSU) and the Social Democratic Party (SPD) .
But today, none of the formations is willing to reissue a necessary pact in the face of the then refusal of Los Verdes to support either of the two great parties. The SPD Social Democrats, who are ahead in the polls after lagging behind throughout the legislature, wink at the Greens, who aspire to obtain their best historical result , while the conservative side leans a priori more towards the Party Free Democratic Party (FDP).
The SPD figures in the polls with a voting intention close to 25 percent, about three points ahead of the CDU-CSU. The Greens would be around 17 percent, the far-right Alternative for Germany 1 percent, the liberals of the FDP 12 percent and Die Linke (The Left) 6 percent.
Saving the far-right AfD, repudiated for pacts in the German political scene, the votes and seats obtained by the rest of the major parties will depend on who governs Germany. The arithmetic predictions anticipate a coalition of at least two parties and the possible pacts have been a recurrent reason for reproach in the campaign.
At the beginning of this year, that great coalition, still puffed and was able to raise a point in the intention to vote.
The CDU governing coalition, its Bavarian allies the CSU and the SPD, known as the conservative La Union coalition, remained the strongest political force in February, with 27 percent voting intention.
Today, La Unión has lost its strength and while the SPD looks again at Los Verdes, the CDU prefers the FDP.
The candidates
The CDU aspires to retain power from the hand of Armin Laschet, head of the Government of North Rhine-Westphalia, the most populous state , and shaken in recent months by all kinds of controversies. Despite being the favorite to succeed Merkel, since the announcement of her candidacy she has seen her bloc lose around ten points in the polls.
Laschet, however, has made an effort to defend that the results are “very tight”, in a last attempt to appeal to the high number of undecided in this campaign. A poll published this week by YouGov, however, showed that 74 percent of voters were already clear about their vote.
SPD candidate Olaf Scholz, vice chancellor and finance minister in the current government, has sold a more stable image than that of his CDU rival. His reliable participation in the debates and his proven management experience draw a profile similar to Merkel’s.
Scholz has also been able to benefit from a progressive decline of both Laschet and Baerbock, whose party came to appear with a voting intention of more than 20 percent. Against him, however, he has played his ambiguity on key issues such as his potential allies after the elections, in particular on the treatment he is willing to give Die Linke.
