Germany chooses on the right with radical AfD as the second party in the country, but the opposition is also growing

The German Truckpredicted in the polls, has come true. Friedrich Merz of the conservative CDU/CSU will be the new Chancellor of Germany. According to the ExitPolls and the first results of Sunday evening, his party wins the elections by approximately 29 percent of the votes, followed by the radical-right AfD by around 20 percent. For the AfD, that is almost a doubling compared to the elections in 2021. The Social Democrats of current Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) are the losers, with a historically low result of around 16 percent. Defense minister Boris Pistorius is expected to take over the party leadership from Scholz.

With that, Germany opts for the right, although an even greater profit for AfD was failed by many. After every violence incident during the election campaign-migrants committed attacks in various cities-it was speculated that the anti-migration party would grow further. However, the polls remained the same, and turned out to be quite accurate.

That there was a lot at stake is apparent from the turnout: with 84 percent it was the highest since 1990. The question is how influential AfD will soon be in the Bundestag. Meeregeren seems to be excluded: the center parties refuse collaboration with the AfD – the so -called Brandmaw. At the end of January, that wall did show the first cracks, when Merz guided an anti-migration motion through the Bundestag with support from AfD.

Opposition also grew

One in five voters opted for radical-right, the opposition also grew in the past year. Hundreds of thousands of people took the streets against radical right. The socialist party that Lekke won a surprising number of votes and is sure of a place in the Bundestag. That Linke made a final sprint: in the polls the party was between 5 and 6 percent, but seems to win 8.5 percent of the votes. The party is especially popular among young people.

At the same time, CDU/CSU became more right -wing and more conservative than under the leadership of Angela Merkel. In Berlin this weekend protested left and right against each other. A coalition must now be formed in that polarized climate.

Winner Merz is in a hurry, he said in his victory speech. “The world outside is not waiting for us. And also not on slow coalition negotiations. We must be ready to act quickly so that we can do the right thing in Germany. And that we get back to work in Europe, so that the world knows that Germany is being ruled again. “

The most obvious government is a ‘big coalition’: CDU and SPD. Whether that is possible numerous depends on the final result of the two small parties FDP and Bündnis Sahra Wagenknecht (BSW). If they get the electoral threshold of 5 percent and get into the Bundestag, CDU and SPD need a third party for a majority of 316 seats. The greens or the FDP then come into the picture. If the two small parties do not reach the electoral threshold, CDU and SPD together have enough seats.

CDU and SPD seem to be able to agree on the most important theme of the elections, migration. Both parties consider a stricter migration policy necessary, although CDU leader Merz wants to go much further than Scholz. With regard to resolving the economic crisis, the negotiations will become more difficult: the CDU stands for a conservative and liberal policy for, with tax cuts and less regulatory pressure, while the SPD wants to invest and the national debt wants to rise for it, even if that bumps With the principle of the Debt.

The CDU did not reject an adjustment of the debt brake in the campaign. This may put an end to the ‘black zero’ (not a budget deficit), which makes large public investments impossible under the new government. Under the traffic light coalition, Germany essentially stopped: because the government parties did not work out anywhere, little happened. Such a scenario will now want to prevent SPD and CDU. The question is who should hand in what.