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      German Candidates Fail to Find Footing in Flood Response

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      So far, none of the main contenders to replace Angela Merkel have come across as strong leaders in the aftermath of floods that killed 170 people and caused billions in damages.BERLIN — Floods have had a way of reshaping German politics.Helmut Schmidt made a name for himself responding to deadly floods in Hamburg in 1962, and went on to become chancellor in the 1970s. Images of Gerhard Schröder wading through muddy water along the Elbe River in 2002 are credited with helping him win another term.The floods that ravaged Germany last week — more severe than any in centuries — are already doing their work in this election year. But the striking thing they have revealed, political analysts say, is that none of the major candidates has been able to demonstrate the level of leadership in a crisis the public has grown accustomed to under Chancellor Angela Merkel.While the deadly flash floods have offered the candidates a chance to show their stuff, political experts said that each has struggled to communicate competence and reassurance. Voters seem to agree.The first poll since the flooding showed a drop in popularity for the two leading candidates — the conservative Armin Laschet and his Green party rival, Annalena Baerbock — after what political experts say have been lackluster performances by both this week.“This will not be an election in which the candidates play a deciding role,” said Uwe Jun, a professor of political science at the University of Trier. “None of the candidates have the kind of overwhelming charisma that is able to fully convince voters.”The floods have killed 170 people, with more than 150 still unaccounted for, the police said on Wednesday. The number of missing is significantly lower than figures announced last week, when downed communication networks and blocked roads rendered many people unreachable.In the latest polling, which was carried out from Tuesday to Sunday, Mr. Laschet’s leading Christian Democratic Union dipped below 30 percent support, to 28 percent, while their main rivals, the second-place Greens, held steady at 19 percent.When asked if they could vote for an individual candidate (Germans cast votes only for parties), which one would receive their endorsement, only 23 percent said Mr. Laschet, according to the survey by the Forsa polling group.On Saturday, Mr. Laschet came under fierce public criticism after he was caught on camera chatting and laughing with colleagues, while President Frank-Walter Steinmeier was giving a solemn statement to reporters after the two had met with flood victims in the city of Erftstadt.Mr. Laschet, 60, who is the governor of North Rhine-Westphalia, was forced to apologize. On Tuesday he visited another devastated town alongside the chancellor.Chancellor Angela Merkel and her party’s chancellor candidate, Armin Laschet, behind her, visiting the flood-ravaged city of Iversheim on Tuesday. The town is in North Rhine-Westphalia, where Mr. Laschet is governor.Pool photo by Wolfgang RattayIf there is one thing Ms. Merkel has learned in her four terms in offices, it is how to be calm in the face of calamity — whether pledging to keep Germans’ savings safe in 2008, or wading through the flooded streets of eastern Germany five years later.Standing beside her Tuesday after meeting with volunteers in the city of Bad Münstereifel, Mr. Laschet tried a more statesmanlike tone. He offered an open ear and a supportive clap on the shoulder to people cleaning the mud and debris from their homes, as well as condolences for victims.“Nothing we can do can bring them back, and we barely have words for the suffering of those who survived,” he said, pledging to double his state’s contribution to emergency aid. “So that we, too, are doing our part,” he said.Ms. Merkel’s government on Wednesday approved a 200 million euro, or $235 million, package of emergency assistance to be paid out to flood victims immediately. That figure will be matched by the affected states.An estimated 6 billion euros, $7 billion, will be needed to repair the infrastructure that has been damaged, including roads, bridges, homes and buildings.Much of that money will flow through the finance ministry run by Olaf Scholz, a Social Democrat, who is also running for chancellor. Getting financial aid to people quickly could give him an edge, but so far he has failed to translate his position into a political advantage, experts say.“If we need more money, then we will make it available,” Mr. Scholz, 63, told reporters in Berlin, “We will do what we have to do to help everyone who needs it.”Markus Söder, Bavaria’s governor, right, and Olaf Scholz, the country’s finance minister and another chancellor candidate, visited the municipality of Schoenau am Koenigssee on Sunday.Lukas Barth-Tuttas/EPA, via ShutterstockMr. Scholz visited stricken communities in Rhineland-Palatinate last week and then headed to the southern state of Bavaria just days after the heavy rains stopped there. But he has failed to connect with voters in a meaningful way, experts said. His party gained only 1 percentage point in the most recent survey and Mr. Scholz’s personal popularity remained unchanged.“He is a candidate that people just can’t really warm up to,” Mr. Jun said.But if any party should be in a position to find a political advantage in the events of the past week, it should be the Greens, who have been pushing for Germany to speed up its transformation to a green economy for decades.Especially popular among the country’s younger voters, climate issues have helped the Greens to replace the Social Democrats as the second most popular party in recent years. But after their candidate for chancellor, Ms. Baerbock, 40, stumbled over accusations of plagiarism in a recently published book and inaccuracies on her résumé, even a deadly weather catastrophe appeared unable to lift the party’s standing significantly.The Greens remained firmly in second place, according to the most recent poll, with 19 percent support — enough to create a majority if they were to agree to join forces in a government led by Mr. Laschet’s conservatives, in a tie-up that many observers believe would be the most likely coalition.Making Ms. Baerbock’s position more difficult is the fact that she currently does not hold a political office that would give her the opportunity to make a public visit to the stricken regions, as do both of her competitors. Last week she decided against taking members of the news media with her when she visited communities in Rhineland-Palatinate afflicted by the severe weather.In several interviews afterward, Ms. Baerbock called for Germany to move more quickly on its exit from coal, currently planned for 2030, and to increase spending to better prepare communities for the dangers posed by extreme weather. She also laid out a three-point plan that included adapting to the changing climate, amid attempts to halt it.“This is not an either-or between climate precaution, climate adaptation and climate protection, but a triad that is actually decided in the same way in all the climate protection treaties worldwide,” Ms. Baerbock told ARD public television.In the wake of last week’s flooding, the Greens are no longer the only party making such calls, but as the images of devastation retreat from the headlines, her party remains in the strongest position to gain voters from the renewed focus on the threat posed by changes to the world’s climate.“I assume that the weather events will indeed raise the issue of climate change to the top of the electorate’s agenda, which will help the Greens,” said Ursula Münch, director of the Academy of Political Education in Tützing, but added that it would not be enough of an advantage to close the gap with the leading conservatives. “It still won’t help Ms. Baerbock into the chancellor’s office.” More

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      What You Need to Know About Germany’s National Election

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      Germans will vote on a new government in September, one without Angela Merkel, who will step down after 16 years in power.BERLIN — Germans will vote on a new government on Sept. 26 and for the first time since 2005, Angela Merkel is not running. After nearly 16 years in power, Ms. Merkel, 67, will leave control of Europe’s largest economy to a new chancellor.The race for the chancellery is wide open and in the wake of Brexit and the election of President Biden in the United States, the world will be watching to see which direction Germans take their country.What is at stake?Guiding Germany out of the coronavirus pandemic, with a focus on reviving the economy, remains a most pressing issue on the domestic front. Climate policies, which will be more urgent after recent floods, and greening of the country’s industrial sector are also on voters’ minds. And digitization and ensuring social equality and security have also featured in debates.Whoever takes power will decide how much to build on Ms. Merkel’s policies and how much to set the country on a new course. If her conservative party remains in power, there is likely to be more consistency than if the environmentalist Greens make history and take the chancellery for the first time.On the foreign policy front, the conservatives would largely seek continuity on Germany’s booming trade with China and its positioning on Russia, including the Nord Stream 2 pipeline that is expected to be completed later this year and would transport natural gas directly to Germany from Russia, circumventing Ukraine and other Eastern European countries. The Greens are against the pipeline.All political parties — except the far-right Alternative for Germany, or AfD — agree that Germany belongs firmly in the European Union. The Greens are pushing for a more ambitious revival of the European project, with tougher action against Hungary and other members that fail to uphold democratic principles.For years, Germany’s approach to China has been “change through trade,” but China’s repression of dissent at home and flexing of its muscles abroad have called that strategy into question. The United States has pressed reluctant allies to take a harder line on China.Unlike four years ago, when migration was still on the minds of many Germans and the anti-immigrant AfD first won seats in the Bundestag, Germany’s Parliament, it has struggled to attract new voters this year. The party has been polling around 10 percent and analysts say that it is weakened by deep inner divides and lack of a galvanizing issue.A restaurant in Berlin this month. Guiding Germany out of the coronavirus pandemic, with a focus on reviving the economy, remains a most pressing issue on the domestic front.Maja Hitij/Getty ImagesWho will be chancellor?Polls indicate that, as usual, no party will win a majority of seats in the Parliament, so the one that wins the most seats would be given first crack at forming a coalition government and choosing a chancellor.Each party names its candidate for chancellor before campaigning begins, although the public focuses more heavily on the candidates for the leading parties who have a realistic chance of winning.Traditionally, those have been the center-right Christian Democrats (Ms. Merkel’s party) and the center-left Social Democrats. But for the first time, the candidate for the environmentalist Greens is viewed as having a real shot at the chancellery.Here are the leading hopefuls for chancellor:The Greens: Annalena Baerbock, a co-leader of the Greens since 2018, is considered more pragmatic than many in her party, which has its roots in the environmental and student protest movements of the previous century. At 40, she is the youngest candidate, the only woman, and the only one who has not previously held an elected office.Annalena Baerbock, the co-head of the German Greens Party, in Berlin last month.Pool photo by Steffi LoosThe Christian Democrats: Armin Laschet leads the Christian Democratic Union and is the governor of North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany’s most populous state. He is considered the choice of continuity, having largely agreed with Ms. Merkel on major policy decisions, including allowing some 1 million migrants into the country in 2015. But a public dispute for the chancellor candidacy with the leader of the Bavarian Christian Social Union — the two parties campaign and caucus together in Parliament — weakened him at the start of the race. And gaffes he has made in recent days after massive flooding hit Germany have not helped him.Armin Laschet, the Christian Democratic Union leader and candidate for Chancellery, second left, visited the flood-ravaged town of Bad Munstereifel with Chancellor Angela Merkel, center right, on Tuesday.Christof Stache/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesThe Social Democrats: Olaf Scholz, of the Social Democrats, Germany’s finance minister and vice chancellor since 2018, is considered the most experienced of the three. He served as labor minister in a previous government under Ms. Merkel and has years of experience at the state level in Hamburg. But his party has largely been polling in third place, behind the conservatives and the Greens, and Mr. Scholz has struggled to generate buzz around his campaign.Germany’s finance minister and vice chancellor Olaf Scholz, center, attending his Social Democratic party’s “Future Camp” in June in Berlin.Pool photo by Fabian SommerOther parties running for seats in Parliament are the free-market Free Democrats, the far-left Left Party and the AfD. Dozens of smaller parties, from the Anarchist Pogo Party to the Animal Protection Party or the Free Voters, are also on the ballot, but are not expected to cross the 5-percent hurdle necessary to earn representation in the Bundestag.Why does Germany matter?Within the European Union, Germany is often seen as a de facto leader. It has both the largest economy and the largest population, and together with France is widely viewed as a motor for policy and decision-making.Under Ms. Merkel, who became one of the most senior leaders within the 27-member bloc, that influence grew even further, although she failed to win a consensus among the member states on refugee policy and on preventing Hungary and Poland from democratic backsliding.Ms. Merkel also used her country’s weight as the world’s fourth-largest economy and a member of the Group of 7 industrialized nations to champion global climate policy and push for tough sanctions against Russia for its annexation of Crimea. Her successor will inherit thorny issues of how to deal with an increasingly powerful China and a push from some within Germany and the E.U. who are ready to restore trade with Moscow. The core relationship with the United States is only beginning to find its footing again after four destabilizing years of the Trump administration.During Ms. Merkel’s four terms in office, the nation of 83 million has undergone a generational shift, becoming more ethnically diverse, but also aging considerably — more than half of all eligible voters are 50 or older. Social norms have become more liberal, with a legal right to gay marriage and a nonbinary gender option on official documents. But a resurgent far right and a breakdown of political discourse at the local level have threatened the country’s cohesion.Ms. Merkel giving her last government declaration at the Bundestag in Berlin last month.Sean Gallup/Getty ImagesWhat role will Chancellor Merkel play?Until a new government can be formed, a process that can take several weeks to several months, Ms. Merkel will remain in office as acting head of the government. Forming the government will depend on how the vote falls and how difficult it is for the winning party to reach agreement with smaller supporters to build a government.The chancellor gave up leadership of her party in December 2018, but remained as head of government until after the election, a position that has left her a lame duck, rendering her decision-making more difficult in the second year of the pandemic. She has vowed to stay out of the election campaign and has so far kept her focus instead on managing the coronavirus pandemic. More

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      Germany Floods: Climate Change Moves to Center of Campaign as Toll Mounts

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      With more than 160 dead across the region, the receding waters revealed extensive damage as well as deep political divides around how far and fast Germans should go to stem carbon use.BERLIN — With the death toll surpassing 160 and rescue efforts intensifying, the once-in-a-millennium floods that ravaged Germany and much of Western Europe this week had by Saturday thrust the issue of climate change to the center of Germany’s politics and its campaign for pivotal elections this fall that will replace Chancellor Angela Merkel after 16 years in power.The receding floodwaters revealed not only extensive damage — homes wiped away, businesses lost, electricity and sewer systems knocked out and hundreds of vehicles destroyed — but also bitter political divides on climate policy in a week when the European Union rolled out the globe’s most ambitious proposals to cut carbon emissions in the next decade.Though German authorities said it was still too early to place a figure on the damage, its sheer scale shifted the debate from calls not to politicize the catastrophe to the realization that the policies behind it must now play a central role in deciding who will take over leadership after the election on Sept. 26.“The Weather is Political,” Germany’s ARD public television said in its lead editorial on the Friday evening news.“For a long time, chatting about the weather was synonymous with triviality. That’s over now,” it said. “The weather is highly political; there is hardly any nonpolitical weather anymore, especially not during an election campaign.”Residents were clearing mud and unusable furniture from houses on Saturday in Bad Neuenahr, Germany.Thomas Frey/dpa, via Getty ImagesThe death toll in Germany climbed to at least 143 on Saturday, while the toll across the border in Belgium stood at 24, the authorities there said.On Saturday, rescue workers were still sifting through ruin across the region. The German news media was filled with images of homes still submerged in muddy brown water up to the second floor and of bridges reduced to crumbled heaps of stone or tangled metal pylons.Tales of tragedy emerged, as well, perhaps none more poignant than in Sinzig, where neighbors recalled hearing the screams from disabled residents trapped in the waters that gushed into the lower floors of the residential home where a lone night watchman was powerless to save them. The event vividly raised tough questions about whether the authorities had been prepared and why flood warnings were not acted on more aggressively by local officials.More than 90 of those who died in Germany had lived in towns and villages in the valley of the Ahr River in the western state of Rhineland-Palatinate, the police said. Local authorities set up a hotline for citizens in the hard-hit area needing support, whether material or psychological, and issued a call for equipment to help provide basic infrastructure and even clean drinking water.The village of Sinzig, Germany, on Friday.Adam Berry/Getty ImagesMs. Merkel, who turned 67 on Saturday and has said she will leave politics after the election, was expected to visit the district on Sunday to survey the scope of the destruction, her office said. She spoke with the governor of Rhineland-Palatinate by video link on Friday, hours after touching down in Berlin from her trip to Washington.While in the United States, the chancellor and President Biden signed a pact that included a commitment to “taking urgent action to address the climate crisis,” which is to include stronger collaboration “on the policies and energy technologies needed to accelerate the global net-zero transition.”The European Union’s ambitious blueprint, announced Wednesday, is part of plans to make the 27-country bloc carbon-neutral by 2050, and will arguably affect no European country more than Germany, the continent’s largest economy and its industrial powerhouse.Coming a day later, the extensive flooding, which affected Belgium, Switzerland and the Netherlands, in addition to Germany, immediately drew parallels between the calamity and the effects of climate change from environmental activists and wide range of politicians.Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany and President Biden this week at the White House.Doug Mills/The New York TimesArmin Laschet, 60, the conservative governor of North Rhine-Westphalia, who is looking to succeed Ms. Merkel, has lauded his regional government for passing legislation on climate change, but critics point to the open-pit soft coal mines in the state that are still threatening local villages and his repeated emphasis on the importance of Germany remaining an industrial powerhouse.When pressed on Thursday during an interview on WDR local public television over whether the floods would be a catalyst for him to take a stance toward climate change, Mr. Laschet snapped at the moderator.“I am a governor, not an activist,” he said. “Just because we have had a day like this does not mean we change our politics.”But in 2011, Ms. Merkel did just that.After seeing the nuclear power plant at Fukushima, Japan, melt down after a tsunami hit, the chancellor backtracked on her government’s decision to extend the country’s dependence on nuclear power until 2033. The disaster led her to reset the target shutdown date to 2022, while increasing the amount of energy powered by renewable sources.Floods have a history of influencing political campaigns in Germany. In 2002, pictures of Chancellor Gerhard Schröder wading in rubber boots through streets awash in the muddy waters of the swollen Elbe, while his conservative rival remained on vacation, are credited with helping him win the election that year.Armin Laschet, right, the conservative governor of North Rhine-Westphalia, with President Frank-Walter Steinmeier of Germany, second right, visiting the Erftstadt fire department on Saturday.Pool photo by Marius BeckerPerhaps wary of that lesson, Annalena Baerbock, 40, who is the Greens party candidate for chancellor and Mr. Laschet’s strongest rival, cut short her vacation to visit stricken areas in Rhineland-Palatinate on Friday.She called for immediate assistance for those affected, but also issued an appeal to better protect “residential areas and infrastructure” from extreme weather events, which she linked to the changing climate.“Climate protection is now: In all areas of climate protection, we need to step up our game and take effective climate protection measures with an immediate climate protection program,” Ms. Baerbock said.Whether the flooding will be enough to lift support for the Greens remains to be seen. After enjoying an initial surge of excitement surrounding the announcement of Ms. Baerbock’s campaign — she is the only woman running to replace the country’s first female chancellor — support for the Greens has now dipped to around 20 percent in polls.That puts the party in second place behind Mr. Laschet’s conservatives, who have been climbing to around 30 percent support, the latest surveys show.“In the next two months, there will always be extreme weather events somewhere in the world,” said Thorsten Faas, a political scientist at the Free University in Berlin. “The focus is set after the catastrophe in Rhineland-Palatinate and North Rhine-Westphalia. The topic will determine the election campaign.”Olaf Scholz, 63, Ms. Merkel’s finance minister who is running for the chance to replace her and return his Social Democratic Party to the chancellery, also headed on Friday to flooded regions in Rhineland-Palatinate, where he pledged swift help from the government and linked the disaster to climate change.Workers clearing debris from the streets on Saturday after flooding caused major damage in the village of Schuld.Christof Stache/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images“I am firmly convinced that our task is stopping human-made climate change,” Mr. Scholz told ZDF public television. He praised his party’s role in passing some of Germany’s first climate laws when the Social Democrats governed with the Greens from 1998 to 2005, but called for a stronger effort to move toward a carbon-neutral economy.“What we still have to do now is get all those who have resisted right up to the end that we raise the expansion targets for renewable energies in such a way that it also works out with a CO2-neutral industry to give up this resistance,” he said.While the focus at the moment is on the role that environmental issues will play in the election campaign, questions are also being raised over whether the chancellor, who was a champion for combating climate change going back to 1995, when she presided over the United Nations’ first Climate Conference in Berlin, actually pushed her own country hard enough.Once she came into power, it proved harder to persuade her country’s powerful industrial and automobile lobbies — key supporters of her conservative party — to do their part.The result was legislation that Germany’s highest court ruled in April was not aggressive enough in its attempts to bring down emissions. It ordered the government to strengthen the law to ensure that future generations would be protected.“In recent years, we have not implemented many things in Germany that would have been necessary,” said Malu Dryer, the governor of Rhineland-Palatinate state, said in an interview with the Funke media consortium.She urged German consumers to support climate-neutral products and the country to “show more speed,” adding that climate change is no longer an abstraction. “We are experiencing it firsthand and painfully,” Ms. Dryer said.The city of Bad Münstereifel, Germany, on Friday.Ina Fassbender/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesMelissa Eddy More

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      German Conservatives Appear to Lead in Last State Election Before National Vote

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      The contest in an eastern state, a stronghold of the Alternative for Germany, had been closely watched for signs of the far-right party’s appeal.BERLIN — Voters in the eastern German state of Saxony-Anhalt appeared in a Sunday vote to support a return of the ruling conservatives, which made strong gains in a contest that had been closely watched for signs of a far-right party’s strength months ahead of a national election.Initial partial returns suggested that the conservative Christian Democratic Union were poised to break a losing streak in state ballots and expand their past margins over the nationalist Alternative for Germany, or AfD.Although Saxony-Anhalt is one of the country’s smallest states, with only 1.8 million people eligible to cast ballots, many Germans were looking to Sunday’s vote for indications about the national election for a new Parliament on Sept. 26.The outcome on Sunday could bolster the campaign of Armin Laschet, the current leader of the Christian Democrats, who is hoping to replace Angela Merkel. She is stepping down after 16 years in office as chancellor.Mr. Laschet, 60, the governor of North Rhine-Westphalia, has struggled to gain traction across the country, especially in the states of the former East Germany, and the strong showing for his party in the last regional election before the national ballot could give his contest a boost.“Today is a clear win for the Christian Democrats,” said Volker Bouffier, the governor of the western state of Hesse and a senior member of the conservative party. “But the fight is still at the beginning, the fight for the democratic center.”Despite the conservatives’ apparent ability to attract more support, the early partial returns suggested that AfD remained firmly the second most popular party in the state, a position it won five years ago when it received nearly a quarter of votes in the Saxony-Anhalt state election, shocking the country and propelling the party from the far-right nationalist fringe onto the national stage.The following year, the AfD won more than 12 percent in the national election, becoming the largest opposition party in the national Parliament, with 88 seats.A polling place at an art history museum in Magdeburg, the capital of Saxony-Anhalt, on Sunday.John Macdougall/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesSince then, Alternative for Germany has struggled to contend with a more extremist wing that has pulled the party branch in Saxony-Anhalt even further to the right, capturing the attention of the country’s domestic intelligence service. The state’s leaders in the party, along with those from the branches in Brandenburg and Thuringia, are under official scrutiny for their anti-Semitic and anti-Muslim statements. Whether the AfD at the national level will also be placed under observation is on hold, pending the outcome of a legal challenge.While much about the Saxony-Anhalt contest is unique to the region, heavily focused on local issues like schools and economic restructuring, a majority of voters told pollsters with infratest.dimap on Sunday they were satisfied with the work of their governor, Reiner Haseloff, a member of the Christian Democrats who sought to clearly distance his party from the AfD.“I am thankful that our image remains, we have a reputation of democracy here in Saxony-Anhalt that we upheld tonight,” Mr. Haseloff said after initial projections had shown his party the clear winner of the evening.Mr. Haseloff has been a strong champion of the states in eastern Germany, home to many regions that are still struggling with the fallout from economic restructuring more than 30 years after the fall of the Berlin Wall.The persistent lack of jobs and economic infrastructure in those states, and a feeling that traditional parties do not take their concerns seriously, were other key factors that led many voters to shift their support to the AfD five years ago. That result forced Mr. Haseloff to form a coalition government across a wide political spectrum, including the center-left Social Democrats as well as the environmentalist Greens, in an effort to keep the far-right in the opposition.On Sunday, the Social Democrats suffered one of their worst showings in a state election, while the Greens were able to gain marginal support in the region, where they have traditionally struggled to attract voters.The other winner of the state ballot, along with the conservatives, appeared to be the pro-business Free Democratic Party, which voters returned to the statehouse for the first time in a decade. More

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      Election in East Germany Will Test the Far Right’s Power

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      Voting on Sunday may hint at how strong the Alternative for Germany party is in the east, and what that means for national elections in September.BERLIN — Five years ago, the nationalist Alternative for Germany sent the country’s traditional parties scrambling when it finished ahead of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservatives in the regional vote in the eastern state of Saxony-Anhalt, an ominous portent of the far right’s growing allure.This Sunday, voters in Saxony-Anhalt will be back at the polls, and the result of this state election, coming just three months before a national one, will be scrutinized to see whether a nationally weakened AfD can hold on to voters in one of the regions where it has proved strongest.While much about the Saxony-Anhalt contest is unique to the region and heavily focused on local issues about schools and economic restructuring, a strong showing by the AfD — which rode a wave of anti-immigration sentiment in 2016 — could cause headaches for Armin Laschet, the leader of Ms. Merkel’s Christian Democrats. Mr. Laschet, who is hoping to replace her in the chancellery, has struggled to gain traction in the former East German states.A sign in Magdeburg pointing the way to an “election event” and a “vaccination center.” Ronny Hartmann/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images“A strong showing by the Christian Democrats would remove a hurdle for Mr. Laschet and could strengthen his position heading into the national race,” said Manfred Güllner, who heads the Forsa Institute political polling agency.At the same time, he conceded, “If the AfD were to perform as well as the Christian Democrats, it would have repercussions for the federal vote.”Amid an election campaign largely carried out online because of pandemic restrictions, Mr. Laschet visited the state’s mining region last weekend. He stressed the need for time and investment to shift successfully away from coal and pledged to provide support similar to what his home state, North Rhine-Westphalia, got when it quit coal.Armin Laschet leads the Christian Democratic Union and hopes to be the next German chancellor.Jens Schlueter/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesThe effort may have paid off: A survey released on Thursday showed his party at 30 percent support in Saxony-Anhalt, a comfortable margin of seven percentage points ahead of the AfD, which is known by its German initials and currently holds 88 seats in the German Parliament.If that margin holds, it could bolster Mr. Laschet’s standing as campaigning begins in earnest for the Sept. 26 election, despite a bruising contest for the chancellor candidacy against a rival from Bavaria.In 2016, Germany was adjusting to the arrival of more than one million migrants the previous year, and Saxony-Anhalt was struggling against looming unemployment. While pollsters had predicted that the AfD, which made itself the anti-immigration party after forming in 2013 to protest the euro, would easily earn seats in the statehouse, no one expected it to come in second, winning more than 24 percent support from the region’s two million voters.Since then, Alternative for Germany has swung even further to the right, capturing the attention of the country’s domestic intelligence service, which placed the party’s leadership under observation over concerns about its anti-Semitic, anti-Muslim expressions and links to extremists. The party’s branches in Brandenburg and Thuringia are also under scrutiny, while an attempt to observe the national party has been put on hold pending the outcome of a legal challenge.The AfD in Saxony-Anhalt “has become very strong, despite the various messy and dubious scandals,” said Alexander Hensel, a political scientist at the Institute for Democracy Studies at the University of Göttingen, who has studied the party’s rise in the region. “Instead of breaking apart, they have consolidated, becoming an increasingly radical opposition force.”Candidates at a debate ahead of the election in Saxony-Anhalt.  Ronny Hartmann/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesThe continued support for Alternative for Germany in places like Saxony-Anhalt has created a split among many mainstream conservatives over whether the Christian Democrats should be willing to enter a coalition with the far-right party if needed.Mr. Laschet has made his opinion clear in recent days. “We don’t want any sort of cooperation with the AfD at any level,” he said in an interview with the public broadcaster Deutschlandfunk.But with the jockeying for the future direction of the Christian Democratic Union underway after 16 years under Ms. Merkel’s largely centrist leadership, some members on the party’s right flank see her exit as a chance to shift harder to the right.In December, the conservative governor of Saxony-Anhalt, Reiner Haseloff, a Christian Democrat who is running for another term, fired his interior minister for seeming to float the possibility of a minority government, supported by the AfD.Mr. Haseloff has based his campaign on promising stability as the country begins to emerge from the pandemic, with a pledge to help improve the standard of living in rural areas, many of which lack enough teachers, medical professionals and police officers.Reiner Haseloff, the governor of Saxony-Anhalt, is a Christian Democrat up for re-election. On Wednesday he discussed reforestation in Oranienbaum-Wörlitz.Christian Mang/ReutersSaxony-Anhalt has the oldest population in all of Germany, a reflection of the number of young people who left the state in the painful years after the reunification of Germany’s former East and West in 1990.While the state has benefited from an attempt under the latest government to create jobs in less populated areas, including by setting up several federal agencies in Saxony-Anhalt, the region’s standard of living still lags those in similar regions in the former West Germany, Mr. Haseloff said.“There continue to be clear differences between east and west, and not only in the distribution of federal offices,” Mr. Haseloff said this week, ahead of an annual meeting focused on increasing regional equality.The Alternative for Germany has campaigned this time around on a rejection of the federal government’s policies to stop the spread of the coronavirus. “Freedom Instead of Corona Insanity” reads one of its posters, showing a blue-eyed woman with a tear rolling down to the rim of her protective mask.Among the other parties, the Social Democrats and the Left are both polling in the 10 to 12 percent rage, largely unchanged from where four years ago.Both the Free Democrats and the Greens are predicted to see their popularity roughly double from where they stood in 2016, which could make it easier for Mr. Haseloff to build a government if he is returned to office. Analysts said regional gains for them were unlikely to have wider repercussions for the national race.“Saxony-Anhalt is a very specific situation, they are coming from a unique history,” Mr. Hensel, the political scientist, said. “But regardless of whether the Greens earn 10 percent or the Free Democrats 8 percent of the vote, a quarter of voters support the AfD. That is worth paying attention to.” More

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      The Race to Replace Angela Merkel Is On

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      BERLIN — For the past two and a half years, since it became clear that Chancellor Angela Merkel would not run for office again, there’s been one great unresolved question in German politics: Who will succeed her?Last week, after the two parties leading in the polls nominated their candidates, we got much closer to finding out. Ms. Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union eventually chose Armin Laschet, the party head. The challenger from the ascendant Green Party is Annalena Baerbock. With the addition of Olaf Scholz of the Social Democratic Party, a credible candidate whose party is lagging behind in the polls, the lineup for September’s election is all but complete.After over 15 years of rule by Ms. Merkel, Germany is at a crossroads. In Mr. Laschet, a 60-year-old regional governor, and Ms. Baerbock, at age 40 the youngest candidate ever to run for chancellor, voters have a stark choice between an icon of continuity and a herald of change. The person voters choose will shape the country’s future, perhaps for decades.So who exactly are the candidates? And what would a Germany led by any of them look like?Armin Laschet, the leader of the Christian Democratic Union and a regional governor, is an icon of continuity.Filip Singer/EPA, via ShutterstockAnnalena Baerbock, co-chair of the Green Party, is the youngest candidate ever to run for chancellor.Leon Kuegeler/ReutersLet’s start with Mr. Laschet. A practicing Catholic from Aachen, an old city that borders the Netherlands and Belgium, he shares with Ms. Merkel a Christian, humanitarian worldview. “He takes the C in C.D.U. very seriously,” Cem Özdemir, a Green Party lawmaker who has known Mr. Laschet for decades, told me. And like Ms. Merkel, Mr. Laschet is described as personally modest and mostly fair in political discussions and negotiations. “You usually get along with him quite well,” said Ulla Schmidt, a Social Democratic lawmaker who has known him for 35 years.Open to new ideas and different positions, Mr. Laschet is notable for having many friends across the political spectrum. As a young lawmaker in the early 1990s, he was among the first in his party to meet with representatives from the Green Party — at a time when many in the C.D.U. still thought of the Greens as a bunch of eco-punks who could not be trusted to run anything, let alone a country.Mr. Laschet was also one of the first in his party to openly embrace the idea that Germany is a country of immigrants. “He has earned himself a lot of respect in migrant communities, because he has listened to what they had to say,” Serap Güler, a Christian Democrat born to Turkish immigrants who serves in Mr. Laschet’s administration in North Rhine-Westphalia, told me.Along with his broadly pro-immigration stance, Mr. Laschet is enthusiastic about education, a tough combatant of organized crime and a vocal opponent of the far-right Alternative for Germany party, with which he has vowed never to cooperate. A true man of the political middle, he could be expected to govern the country competently and fairly. But his candidacy, already weakened by his poor ratings, is a gamble that Germans want more of the same.Ms. Baerbock, by contrast, offers something truly new. Born in 1980, she represents the generation that came of age after the country’s reunification. Raised in Hanover in the west, she now — by way of a stint in Brussels, where she was an office manager for a Green Party lawmaker in the European Union — holds a seat in Brandenburg in the east. Her approach is refreshingly relatable: A mother of two young children, who has spoken about the struggles of being a working mom, she’s unafraid to bring together the personal and the political.But she doesn’t shy away from substantive debates — about climate change or foreign policy — or difficult political negotiations. In 2017, for example, when the Greens were discussing a possible coalition deal with the Christian Democrats and the Free Democratic Party (which pulled out at the last moment, scuppering the plan), Ms. Baerbock demanded the country end its use of coal and even brokered a compromise, impressing opponents and colleagues alike with her tenacity and command of detail.Those qualities have been visible in her leadership of the party, a position she surprisingly won, along with a co-chair, in 2018. Famously afflicted by infighting between its left and right flanks, the Green Party under Ms. Baerbock has been notably united. That has contributed to the party’s remarkable ascendance, from a marginal environmental force to a serious contender for power. Once regularly polling at 5 percent or 6 percent approval, the party now stands at around 20 percent — with room to grow.In its slow but steady rise, the party moved to the political middle, in style and substance, and toned down some of its more radical ideas, such as the dissolution of NATO. Even so, the party’s platform for the national election is notably far-reaching, calling for a “social-ecological transformation” and a zero-emissions economy. (The Christian Democrats have yet to release their platform.) Many of the document’s details remain vague, but it is radical in its language and ideas.Were Ms. Baerbock to become the Greens’ first-ever chancellor — the party served as the junior partner in a national coalition with the Social Democrats from 1998 to 2005, but has never before stood a chance of reaching the chancellery — it would certainly be a great political experiment.Inexperience, political adversaries say, would be a major hindrance. While it’s true that Ms. Baerbock has no government experience, she’s known for her perseverance and willingness to fight. In the race to become the party’s candidate, she started as the underdog — her co-chair, Robert Habeck, was expected to clinch it — but she systematically and strategically built support, both inside and outside the party.It’s easy to see how she did it: In conversation, she comes across as a quick mind, as well as tough and disciplined. And she clearly has a talent for motivating and enthusing others. Unlike Mr. Laschet, whose candidacy was fiercely contested, she is loved by her party.In recent months, the government’s failure to stem the tide of new coronavirus infections, bolster the health service and roll out vaccinations has stung. Germans seem ready for something new. The question is: How new will it be?The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram. More

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      A Bitter Family Feud Dominates the Race to Replace Merkel

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      Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany will exit the world stage in less than six months, and the fight for her seat is pitting the leaders of two sister parties against one another.BERLIN — With less than six months to go before Germans cast their ballots for a new chancellor, the political vacuum Angela Merkel leaves behind after 16 years of consensus-oriented leadership is coming more sharply into focus.A rare and rancorous power struggle has gripped Germany’s conservatives this week as two rivals vie to replace her, threatening to further hobble her Christian Democratic Union, which is already sliding in the polls.Normally, Armin Laschet, 60, who was elected in January to lead the party, would almost assuredly be the heir apparent to Ms. Merkel. Instead, he finds himself unexpectedly pitted against his biggest rival, Markus Söder, the more popular head of a smaller, Bavaria-only party, the Christian Social Union, in a kind of conservative family feud.Experts and party members alike are calling for the dispute to be resolved within the coming days, as it risks damaging the reputation of the two conservative parties, jointly referred to as the Union. Because the two parties operate as one on the national stage, they must choose one candidate for chancellor.“Armin Laschet and Markus Söder must finally understand their responsibility toward the Union,” Tilman Kuban, head of the Young Union, told the Bild daily on Thursday. “If they continue to tear one another apart as they have in the past few days, together they will ensure that there won’t be much left of the Christian Democrats or the Christian Socialists in the future.”Leading Ms. Merkel’s party would have once been seen as an advantage for Mr. Laschet, but it has recently become a drag. With a botched vaccine rollout and a confusing response to the pandemic, support for the conservatives has plunged by 10 percentage points since the start of the year.After a series of personal gaffes, Mr. Laschet’s popularity has been dropping. In his home state of North Rhine-Westphalia more than half of the population have said they are not happy with his performance, and a poll this week showed only 4 percent of Germans nationwide see him as “a strong leader.”For Armin Laschet, leading Ms. Merkel’s party was once an asset, but may now be seen as a liability. Sean Gallup/Getty ImagesAt the same time, Mr. Söder, 54, who is also governor of Bavaria, has artfully used several appearances alongside Ms. Merkel after pandemic-related meetings to burnish his image as a man in charge, capable of tackling tough issues and getting things done.A full 57 percent of Germans said Mr. Söder displayed the qualities of “a strong leader.”Keenly aware of his popularity, Mr. Söder began openly pushing for the candidacy earlier this week, citing his strong, stable showing in the polls over Mr. Laschet, despite warnings from senior conservatives that public opinion could be fickle.“At the end of the day, the conservative parties have to make an offer that will be acceptable to voters and the people, and not just a few party functionaries,” Mr. Söder told Bavarian public television. “Of course polls are not everything, but if after several months a clear trend emerges, it cannot just be ignored.”After leading conservative lawmakers discussed the issue on Sunday, Mr. Söder said he was willing to run, if the Christian Democrats would support him. If not, he added, he would cooperate, “without any grudges.”But on Monday, after the boards of each party had backed their own leader, Mr. Söder suddenly changed his position. He continued to push for his right to run for chancellor during a closed-door meeting of conservative lawmakers on Tuesday. After four hours of discussions, nearly two-thirds of those present expressed their support for the Bavarian leader — including members of Mr. Laschet’s party.Markus Söder is leading Mr. Laschet in polling and has the support of nearly two-thirds of conservative leaders. Clemens Bilan/EPA, via ShutterstockIn a country that views the art of compromise as a valuable skill for a leader, the public game of political chicken could come at a high price. At a time when the environmentalist Greens have rapidly risen in popularity and are now nipping at the conservatives’ heels, they can ill afford such a public display of disharmony.“At the end of the day, both have to decide between themselves. There is no set procedure that clearly defines how this will end,” said Prof. Thorsten Fass, a political scientist at Berlin’s Free University. Regardless of who runs as the candidate, the damage of the fight will still have to be repaired, Professor Fass said. “It is not a good way to start an election year.”Both contenders have said they would like the matter to be decided by the end of the week, and pressure from inside both parties is growing for a quick resolution.Four other political parties are vying to win the most votes on Sept. 26 and seize power by forming a government and naming a chancellor.The center-left Social Democrats, who have been the junior party in Ms. Merkel’s government coalition since 2017, have already named the finance minister and vice-chancellor, Olaf Scholz, as their choice for chancellor. The Greens, currently polling as the second-strongest party ahead of the Social Democrats and close behind the conservatives, are scheduled to announce their candidate on Monday. Not everyone is ready to count out Mr. Laschet yet. He is a politician whose recent successes, winning the governorship of North Rhine-Westphalia over a well-liked incumbent and the monthslong race for the Christian Democrat leadership in January, both saw him grasping victory after coming from behind.Mr. Laschet also has the backing of some of the most senior and influential members of his party, including the former finance minister Wolfgang Schäuble, who has been around since the first time the conservatives split over a chancellor candidate in 1979.“If Laschet has the nerve and still has his party’s leadership behind him, then Söder could say that he accepts this, then use his position to negotiate a strong minister post for his party in a potential future government,” said Ursula Münch, director of the Academy for Political Education in Tutzing.On the other hand, if enough pressure from within the party builds on Mr. Laschet, he could concede to Mr. Söder for the sake of the party and the need to move ahead. That would hand the Bavarian leader a victory that would serve to enforce his reputation as a sharp-witted maverick who will change his policies to fit the public mood. As public favor in Bavaria shifted from the far-right Alternative for Germany party to the environmentalist Greens, he abandoned an anti-immigrant stance and embraced a push to save honey bees, to the ire of farmers who have long formed the grass roots of his party.“He is intelligent, quick and rhetorically strong,” Ms. Münch said of Mr. Söder. “He is able to push people into a corner while keeping a back door open for himself, and in that sense, Laschet can’t hold a candle to him.” More

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      Election Year in Germany Kicks Off With Voting in Two States

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The Coronavirus OutbreakliveLatest UpdatesMaps and CasesRisk Near YouVaccine RolloutGuidelines After VaccinationAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyElection Year in Germany Kicks Off With Voting in Two StatesRegional governments will be chosen in two southwestern states months before a national vote that is considered wide open after 16 years under Chancellor Angela MerkelPosters for the Rhineland-Palatinate state election, including the incumbent governor, Malu Dreyer of the Social Democrats, right, and Christian Baldauf of the Christian Democratic Union, top left, in Frankenthal, Germany, on Wednesday.Credit…Michael Probst/Associated PressMarch 14, 2021, 5:33 a.m. ETBERLIN — Voters in two southwestern German states are kicking off an election year on Sunday that could change the course of Europe’s largest economy after 16 years under the leadership of Chancellor Angela Merkel, who will be stepping down after a new government is sworn in.The elections in the states of Baden-Württemberg and Rhineland-Palatinate are the first in a year that will see voting for new legislators in four more states, and for the country’s Parliament, which will be elected in September.Sunday’s voting is taking place after largely muted election campaigns that were overshadowed by the threat of the coronavirus and by lockdowns. While neither race will serve as a clear bellwether for the fall election, the outcomes could indicate how voters are feeling about the two leading parties, the conservatives and the Greens, and help focus the contest for Ms. Merkel’s replacement.“It is an unbelievably exciting election year,” said Thorsten Faas, a professor of political science at Berlin’s Free University. “A lot is still open, creating the possibility for movement in various directions.”A vaccine rollout stymied by shortages of doses and hampered by bureaucracy is leading many to question the competence of the chancellor’s conservative bloc. Over the past week, revelations have emerged that several conservative lawmakers earned tens of thousands of euros in exchange for arranging the sale of medical-grade masks to municipalities early in the pandemic, when supplies were very tight.Three lawmakers have resigned over the scandal, including a member of the Christian Democratic Union representing a district in Baden-Württemberg. Another lawmaker from the state of Thuringia, as well as a member of the Christian Social Union, the conservative party in the state of Bavaria, also resigned. After the payouts came to light, party leaders required all 240 conservative lawmakers to sign a declaration pledging they hadn’t used their position for financial gain in connection with fighting the pandemic.Even before the scandal broke, the conservatives were struggling in the race in Baden-Württemberg, where a popular incumbent governor for the Greens is seeking a third term in office.For the past five years, Winfried Kretschmann, 72, has led the state through a coalition of his environmental party with the conservative Christian Democrats, and voters are expected to return him to office. Polls in the weeks running up to the vote showed the Greens with the strongest support, between 33 to 35 percent. Mr. Kretschmann campaigned on his personality, under the slogan “You know me,” and promised a continuation of his party’s consensus-seeking policies of the past five years.Winfried Kretschmann, the incumbent governor of Baden-Württemberg state, left, with Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany in Heidelberg in 2019.Credit…Daniel Roland/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesPolls suggest the Christian Democrats in Baden-Württemberg appear poised to take second place, setting the stage for a possible continuation of the current coalition, a combination that many observers consider a possibility for the makeup of the national Parliament.The Alternative for Germany, or AfD, is expected to hold onto the roughly 15 percent support that it won in Baden-Württemberg in 2016. Although the regional party has been plagued by internal divisions and strife among its members, it is expected to retain voters who are attracted to its nationalistic, anti-establishment stance.The Coronavirus Outbreak More