Germany goes to poll today, Merkel poised to win Booze, Porsches and secrets: Germany’s candidates get real

Far-Right Party Likely To Enter House For First Time Since WWII

Berlin/Greifswald: German chancellor Angela Merkel, poised to win a fourth term in Sunday’s election, urged supporters on Saturday to keep fighting for votes with a third of the electorate still undecided. Merkel’s call was echoed by her centre-left challenger Martin Schulz of the Social Democratic Party (SPD), now in an unwieldy “grand coalition” with her conservatives.

Merkel is widely expected to cruise to re-election with the SPD trailing by double digits but the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) could emerge as the third largest party, complicating the make-up of her next coalition. A new INSA poll showed declining support for both Merkel’s conservatives, who dropped two percentage points to 34%, and the SPD, down one point to 21%. The anti-immigrant AfD, meanwhile, gained two percentage points to 13%, which would make it the first far-right party to enter parliament since the end of World War II.

Merkel, speaking to supporters in Berlin before heading to her home constituency in northern Germany, called for a final push to drum up votes by focusing on conservatives’ commitment to support ➤ If Angela Merkel wins, she will be on track to rival Helmut Kohl’s record of 16 years as chancellor ➤ For first time since 1950s, record seven parties expected to enter the German parliament ➤ Hard-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) could become the third-strongest party for families, a pledge to avoid tax increases and a focus on increasing security in Germany.

The Christian Democratic leader also lauded the role of the European Union in providing stability in “a troubled world”. “We want to boost your motivation so that we can still reach many, many people today. Many are still undecided,” said Merkel. First elected in 2005, Merkel remains popular in Germany but has regularly faced jeers from left- and rightwing demonstrators during her speeches across Germany — a decided change from her last campaign in 2013.

At a campaign rally in Munich on Friday, Merkel defen- ➤ Merkel and her Christian Democratic Union may be looking at their lowest score of 35.1% ➤ Since Merkel took power in 2005, drinkers at Oktoberfest have downed 76.7 million litres of beer at the festival — equivalent of around 30 Olympicsized swimming pools ded her 2015 decision to admit about one million asylum seekers as a humanitarian necessity but pledged to prevent a repeat of that crisis by doing more to fund programmes in migrants’ home countries to dissuade people from emigrating.

Several polls estimate that the AfD will win 10% to even 15% of the vote. Far-right parties have held seats in state legislatures and municipal councils in Germany for decades. But since the federal Parliament of West Germany was established in 1949 after the Nazi defeat in World War II, no party to the right of the Christian Democratic Union has surpassed the 5% threshold necessa- ry to win seats there.

Interior minister Thomas de Maiziere, in an interview, criticised the AfD as “a wolf in sheep’s clothing” and said thedomestic intelligence agency was studying “whether rightwing extremists are exerting influence on the party”. The AfD was founded in 2013 with the original goal of opposing large bailouts of financially strapped euro zone countries but from 2015 shifted its focus to immigration. The party, which has already won seats in 13 of 16 state legislatures, has promised to re-energise debate in the federal parliament after four years of what it calls Merkel’s “boring” rule.

Germany’s 2017 election campaign may have been widely panned as a snoozefest. But a closer look reveals that the candidates themselves are anything but dull. Here’s a rundown of some of the interesting tidbits about the main players.

Martin Schulz | Social Democratic Party

Life almost took a very different turn for Merkel’s main challenger, Martin Schulz of the Social Democrats. After quitting high school without a diploma, he pinned his hopes on becoming a professional football player. But a knee injury crushed that dream, and a despondent Schulz turned to alcohol. He credits his brother with getting him back on the right track. Not long after, he became the youngest-ever mayor (at 31) in 1986 of his home state of North Rhine-Westphalia. His career eventually took him to Brussels, where he went on to become the head of the European Parliament (2012-1017). Along the way, he taught himself five languages.

Alice Weidel | Alternative for Germany

Alice Weidel is an openly gay, former Goldman Sachs banker who is raising two children with her Sri Lankanborn partner. She’s also one of the leading candidates for the rightwing populist Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, which prides itself on its antiimmigration and anti-elite leanings. Acknowledging the apparent paradox, Weidel said: “If we’re being honest, of course the AfD doesn’t seem like the first port of call when it comes to gay rights.” But she has also railed against the “Muslim gangs” who she says make it difficult for gay couples to hold hands in the street.

Christian Lindner | Free Democrats Party

The pro-business Free Democrats (FDP) have plastered black-and-white close-ups of their leader Christian Lindner’s face on campaign posters across the country. Not bad for a man who was overweight as a teenager. Determined to fight the flab, Lindner says he shed 30 kilogrammes after taking up jogging and going on a strict diet. Showing the same tenacity elsewhere in life, he started his own ad agency at the age of 17. At 19, he bought his first Porsche. “I shouldn't have done that,” he says now. After his studies, he launched a software business that went under in the dotcom bubble of the early 2000s.

Sahra Wagenknecht | Die Linke party

The leader of the far-left Die Linke party Sahra Wagenknecht was born behind the Iron Curtain in communist East Germany in 1969, to a German mother and an Iranian father. When she was just three years old, her student father went on a trip to his home country and was never heard from again. His fate remains a mystery. She is one half of a political power couple with former Social Democrat heavyweight Oskar Lafontaine, a one-time finance minister who later defected to Die Linke.

Cem Ozdemir | Greens party

Co-leader of the Greens party is of Turkish origin. Last year, he attracted the wrath of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan for backing a parliamentary resolution that recognised the World War I-era mass killings of Armenians as genocide. Such was the outrage that Ozdemir needed police protection. In 2014, at the height of the “ice bucket” challenge craze, Ozdemir was filmed dousing himself in freezing water while standing next to a marijuana plant. He later said he had wanted to make “a gentle political statement” to decriminalise cannabis.