Germany votes to pave way for first government of post-Merkel era

By Robin Powell, dpa

Germans will vote on Sunday to decide the political direction of Europe’s biggest economy after nearly 16 years under Chancellor Angela Merkel.

The pivotal elections are the centre-left Social Democrats’ to lose after the party’s unexpected but steady rise to the top of the polls.

The SPD candidate for chancellor, Olaf Scholz, 63, who has worked closely with Merkel as her finance minister over the last four years, is the front-runner to take over her chair in the chancellery, but only just.

His main rival, 60-year-old Armin Laschet from the Christian Democrats (CDU), lost ground during a lacklustre election campaign but closed the gap in the polls to within a few percentage points in recent days.

Such small margins are going to be crucial as the parties position themselves for the coalition horse-trading after the results come out.

For the first time in its history, the Greens put forward a candidate for chancellor this year, but Annalena Baerbock has seen her popularity slide and the Greens are expected to come a distant third.

Merkel has led a conservative bloc – consisting of the CDU and their Bavarian sister party the Christian Social Union (CSU) – to victory in the last four elections, defining Germany’s political culture for a whole generation.

She is the country’s second-longest serving leader after Helmut Kohl, who took Germany through reunification.

Most commentators see a three-party coalition as the most likely outcome of the elections. No party has managed much more than a quarter of the vote share in surveys during the campaign.

If Germany stays with the CDU/CSU, it is a mandate for continuity, with promises of tax reductions that target mainly middle and higher earners, tight control of public debt and a climate change agenda that focusses on carbon emissions trading.

If Germany swings left, the tax reductions are likely to favour middle and lower earners, with a higher top rate of tax; a minimum wage of 12 euros per hour would become a reality; and the public purse would be opened for investment in areas such as renewables and public infrastructure.

When it comes to coalitions, the inclusion of the Greens, the Free Democrats (FDP), or the hard-left Die Linke in coalition would bring a host of new policies to the table: the Greens want to do far more on climate change and building up renewables; the FDP have a low-tax and pro-business agenda; Die Linke voters would want to see higher taxes on the rich and less on the lower earners.

Despite losing the prospect of leading a coalition government, the Greens – boosted perhaps by Friday’s climate protests – still hope to maximize their chances of getting into government.

If they manage about 16-17 per cent of the vote as expected it would be a remarkable doubling of their mandate since the last election in 2017.

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