Small parties fight for 3rd place

BERLIN: The leading candidates of Germany’s smaller parties locked horns over migration, security and foreign policy in a television debate on Monday.

It came less than three weeks before the federal election in which the third-placed party could turn out to be the kingmaker.

The clash followed a debate between centre-right Chancellor Angela Merkel and her Social Democrat (SPD) challenger Martin Schulz on Sunday, in which hardly any differences emerged.

This stirred speculation that a re-run of the current grand coalition between the conservative Christian Democratic Union/ Christian Social Union in Bavaria (CDU/ CSU) bloc and the SPD is the most likely outcome of the Sept 24 vote.

Ms Merkel and Mr Schulz both have stressed they want to avoid such a scenario. But polls suggest that the next government would have a stable majority only with another grand coalition or with a tricky three-way coalition between the conservatives, the Greens and the business-friendly Free Democrats (FDP).

In the debate of the smaller parties, Cem Ozdemir from the Greens attacked Die Linke (Left) candidate Sahra Wagenknecht and Alternative for Germany (AfD) politician Alice Weidel for their eurosceptic rhetoric.

“This anti-European populism is simply wrong — no matter if it comes from far-left or far-right,” Mr Ozdemir said, adding that Germany was benefiting immensely from the European Union and that it was easy to always blame Brussels.

Ms Weidel from the rightist anti-immigrant AfD blamed the European Central Bank’s ultra-loose monetary policy for soaring rents and property prices in German cities and accused the European Central Bank of violating European treaties with its bond-buying programme.

FDP candidate Christian Lindner tried to corner Mr Ozdemir by accusing him of applying double standards in foreign policy and having an inconsistent approach towards Russia.

Mr Lindner raised eyebrows last month when he suggested that Germany might have to accept Russia’s 2014 annexation of the Crimea region of Ukraine as a “permanent provisional arrangement”.

Ms Merkel has condemned Russia’s annexation of Crimea and its support for anti-government separatists in eastern Ukraine, leading Europe in maintaining economic sanctions against Moscow.

Mr Linder himself said Germany should not mix refugee and asylum policies with the need for a modern and well-directed immigration law to attract more highly educated workers from abroad to avert a shortage of skilled labour in Germany.

Mr Lindner said there was no need for tougher security laws, adding that last year’s Christmas market attack in Berlin by a failed asylum seeker could probably have been averted if authorities had only implemented existing laws more strictly.

The SPD is trailing Ms Merkel’s bloc by double digits in polls. The latest Emnid survey showed on Sunday that the SPD gained one percentage point to 24% and Ms Merkel’s conservatives remained unchanged at 38%.

The leftist Die Linke came in at 9%, making it the third-strongest political force. The Greens, FDP and AfD stood at 8% each.