On the eve of completely undecided legislative elections in Germany, Angela Merkel called on Saturday to vote, in the name of “the future” of Germany, for the conservative Armin Laschet, during his last meeting.
Long away from electoral contests, the Chancellor, who failed to prepare her succession, no longer spares her efforts to try to allow the conservative CDU-CSU union to secure an unexpected victory against the Social Democrat Olaf Scholz .
And so to avoid tarnishing his record with a defeat of his camp.
"It is only every four years that you have the opportunity to decide at the federal level who should shape this future for you in Berlin", launched the outgoing chancellor in Aachen, alongside the Christian candidate- Democrat, the unpopular and awkward Armin Laschet. This 60-year-old former journalist "learned politics from scratch and he runs this state of North Rhine-Westphalia like a prosperous federal state", praised the head of the German government, who may have to expedite business in the coming months, during negotiations to form a new ruling coalition.
"You have to make the right decisions (...) because it is your country and you decide on your future government" which will have to ensure "prosperity, security and peace", underlined the 67-year-old leader, of whom more thirty in politics.
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Since the polls turned around in the heart of the summer, the curvaceous Conservative candidate has himself attacked, waving the specter of a left turn with Olaf Scholz, the very moderate leader of the SPD, Angela Merkel's finance minister since 2018.
Slipping in the polls
While the center-right has always won more than 30% of the vote in national elections and provided the country with five of the eight post-war chancellors, the conservatives are threatened with their worst electoral score. In recent polls, the Social Democrats are leading with some 25% of the voting intentions, against 21 to 23% of the vote for the CDU / CSU. But the gap narrowed in the home stretch before the poll and Angela Merkel on Friday appealed to undecided voters to give her party the advantage. And prevent him from leaving the political scene with a bitter taste.
Armin Laschet's slide in the polls propelled 63-year-old Vice-Chancellor Olaf Scholz into an unexpected wild card.
He will close the campaign on Saturday afternoon at a meeting in Potsdam, near Berlin, the constituency where he is running.
His composure, which borders on boredom according to his detractors, and his experience as a great financier reassure German voters.
The latter seem in fact in search of the best heir to a chancellor who still enjoys popularity at the zenith.
This concern pushes each of the candidates to claim their proximity to Angela Merkel and augurs well for the continuation of a centrist and pro-European course after the departure of the Chancellor.
Olaf Scholz, however, proclaimed on Friday that he was the face of "renewal for Germany", insisting that the country "needed a change".
The importance of climate issues
This new lease of life is claimed by the tens of thousands of young people who demonstrated across Germany on Friday to demand more determined action in favor of the climate.
Despite the importance of climate issues in the countryside, and the trauma of the country affected by deadly floods in July, the environmental cause has not progressed as much as hoped the "Grünen", a time given in the running to win the chancellery.
The Greens' candidate Annalena Baerbock would get 15% of the vote, taking third place, ahead of the liberal FDP around 11%.
The Greens should nevertheless play a pivotal role in the future coalition, whose formation promises to be even more complex than in the past: it should require three parties to succeed the current "GroKo" (grand coalition) made up of the Union. CDU / CSU and the SPD.
In the range of possible coalitions, a majority dominated by the left and the Greens, or associating the liberals and the center right, would influence the budgetary, fiscal and climate policy choices of the country, and its diplomatic orientations.