Merkel takes on hard-right in final German vote push
BERLIN: German Chancellor Angela Merkel and her beleaguered rival push for votes Friday ahead of a weekend election, both seeking to beat back a challenge from the emboldened hard-right.
The 63-year-old Merkel, who polls say will cruise by a doubledigit margin to a fourth term on Sunday, will rally supporters in the southern city of Munich, at the height of the Oktoberfest beer festival.
Schulz, 61, a former European Parliament president and leader of the centre- left Social Democrats ( SPD), will take to the stage in a central Berlin square in a last- ditch attempt to turn the race in his favor.
Despite Merkel’s commanding lead, the latest polls point to storm clouds on the horizon.
The anti- immigration, antiMuslim party Alternative for Germany (AfD) looks set to easily clear the five- percent hurdle to representation in parliament in a
The prospect of some 60 MPs Sigmar Gabriel taking seats in the Bundestag lower house has added urgency and angst to what had long been dismissed as a suspense-free campaign.
“Go vote and vote for the parties that are 100 percent loyal to our constitution,” Merkel told Germans in a swipe at the AfD.
“We have to take a clear stance when it’s about our basic values.”
‘Last-minute turnaround’
The AfD is currently polling at between 11 and 14 percent, deeply unsettling the mainstream parties that have governed Germany since the war.
A strong showing for the AfD could eat away at Merkel’s lead. With her CDU and its Bavarian sister party CSU on between 33 and 36 percent, they risk hurtling toward their worst-ever score (35.1 percent in 1998).
Schulz this week took some succor from Merkel’s slipping poll numbers, hoping for a “last-minute turnaround” linked to “growing unease” in the population.
However, his SPD is set to fare even worse, between 19 and 22 percent, signaling an unmitigated disaster for Germany’s oldest party.
gain traction with his message of promoting social justice and narrowing the wealth gap.
With the economy humming, business confidence robust and unemployment at postreunification lows, analysts say there is simply little appetite for change at the top.
‘Arrogance of power’
During her campaign rallies, Merkel was repeatedly confronted by organized AfD protesters, even dodging a few tomatoes while hammering home her stabilityand- prosperity stump speech.
The rightwing populists have seized on those disillusioned by Merkel’s 12-year tenure, and by her 2015 decision to let more than one million mainly Muslim asylum seekers into the country.
Even the mainstream media point to a degree of Merkel fa campaign and a sense of complacency could ultimately drive many German voters into the arms of extremists.
“For months, Merkel was the phlegmatic queen of the cam line, it’s not Martin Schulz that is posing a danger but her own ponderousness,” Rene Pfister wrote in Der Spiegel.
“That antagonizes AfD sup - dence of victory see further evidence of the arrogance of power in the late Merkel years.”