Germany’s elections: center-right CDU leads, far-right AfD set for record gains

De
Universul.net
-
Sursa: Facebook

Some 59 millions Germans are eligible to vote Sunday in snap elections called after the previous left-wing coalition collapsed amid in-fighting.

The conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU) are strong favorites, but the election may bring record results for the far right AfD, which is looking to  double its vote. In an attempt to poach some of that support, the CDU has promised a rightward shift.

The incumbent Social Democratic Party (SPD) stands in third place with 15 percent.

Friedrich Merz’s CDU/CSU bloc has consistently been ahead in the polls but is unlikely to win a majority given Germany’s fragmented political landscape, forcing it into a coalition.
Negotiations are expected to be challenging after a campaign that exposed sharp divisions over migration and how to deal with the AfD in a country where far-right politics carries a particularly strong stigma because of its Nazi past.
That could leave unpopular Chancellor Olaf Scholz in a caretaker role for months, delaying urgently needed policies to revive Germany’s ailing economy, Europe’s largest, after two consecutive years of contraction.

More than half a million newly naturalized Germans are eligible to vote in the high-stakes election.

In 2015-2016 alone, more than 1 million migrants came to Germany, most from Syria.

The AfD’s rising popularity with its anti-immigrant and anti-Islam rhetoric poses a challenge to Syrians and other immigrants.

The Syrians fled their country because of the war that followed former President Bashar al-Assad’s crackdown on protests calling for greater democratic freedom.

Newsweek threatens to sue Musk ally over Romania ‘lies’ and disinformation

ARTICOLE SIMILAREDE LA ACELAȘI AUTOR