Migrant’s son challenges Merkel from left field
Greens poised to defeat far Right in Germany’s financial capital and test chancellor’s coalition
Tarek al-wazir is not an obvious figure to be the man who brings down Angela Merkel. The son of a Yemeni immigrant father and a German mother, he backed her “open-door” refugee policy even when her own party rebelled against it.
But if the polls are right, he is set to lead the Green Party to a stunning upset when Frankfurt, Germany’s financial capital, votes at the weekend – and already there are warnings that it could leave the German chancellor facing the collapse of her coalition or a leadership challenge from within her own party.
“We are getting votes from people who usually don’t even bother with politics,” Mr Wazir said. “They’re unhappy with the populism that is sweeping Europe and they want to stop it. They want to keep our country the way it is: open, tolerant and democratic.”
Emotions are riding high at the Greens’ final rally in Frankfurt. It takes place in an old-style dance-hall, complete with mirror ball and pink glitter. Mr Wazir and his fellow candidates dance to a disco beat – and look considerably more at ease with the moves than Theresa May did at the Conservative Party conference. It wasn’t supposed to be this way. The nationalist Alternative for Germany party (AFD) has long been seen as the main threat to Mrs Merkel, and for more than a year the battleground has been on the Right.
But in the past two weeks, the Greens have thrown political wisdom into disarray. First they stormed to second place in regional elections in Bavaria, easily eclipsing the AFD in what was supposed to be a key state for them.
They are on course to repeat the feat in regional elections this weekend in the state of Hesse, home to the German financial capital.
The latest polls have the Greens on 20 per cent, behind Mrs Merkel’s Christian Democrats (CDU), who are on 28 per cent, and level with her coalition partners the Social Democrats (SPD). The AFD are a distant fourth on 12 per cent. Opinion polls consistently show Mr Wazir is the most popular politician in Hesse.
For Mr Wazir, his party’s success is easy to explain. “If you look at what happened recently, we had 200,000 people marching against the far-right in Berlin,” he said. “We are the only party that has refused to compromise over populism. All the other mainstream parties, the CDU and the SPD, they have let the AFD set the agenda on issues like immigration and tolerance, and started talking the language of populism.
“But we are the opposite of the AFD. People know what they are getting with us: they know we stick to our principles.”
The Green surge has catapulted Mr Wazir, the party’s regional leader, to national prominence. “A year ago I thought the world had gone mad, between Donald Trump and Alexander Gauland [the AFD leader],” he told the Green rally, to laughter. “Of course I understand the things that make people vote for Brexit or Trump or the AFD. They’re afraid of change. But we have to stand up and say nationalism is not the answer,” he said afterwards. “Because every time Europe has turned to nationalism in the past, it has led to war, suffering and genocide.” Unlike in Bavaria, the Greens are already in power in Hesse as the CDU’S junior coalition partner.
But Mrs Merkel’s party may be about to be swept out of office by its ally; while the CDU is set to come first, the results could make it hard for it to form a coalition.
For Mrs Merkel, losing Germany’s financial capital would be a symbolic blow and some have warned she could face a leadership challenge at the party conference in December if she cannot hold onto Hesse.
The chancellor has tried to play down the threat, saying: “Every regional vote can’t be turned into a mini-general election.”
But it is telling that she has thrown herself into campaigning, and even took the rare step of manning the telephones this week.
“Mrs Merkel’s problem is that her
coalition doesn’t actually do anything,” Mr Wazir said. “It took them six months even to form a coalition. The parties don’t do what they say; they are too busy fighting each other.”
But Mr Wazir said he didn’t believe the Greens were about to become the new mainstream German party of the Left. On the contrary, he predicted that mainstream parties may be a thing of the past.
“If you look at what is happening across the country … there is no natural party of government. If you look at Berlin, the polls are split four ways. I think there’s a fundamental shift in politics away from the old ‘catch-all’ parties.”
‘Every time Europe has turned to nationalism in the past, it has led to war, suffering and genocide’