Germany general election to be held on Sept 24, says government

German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s government on Wednesday (Jan 18) set Sept24 as the date for a generalelection in which she will seek a fourth term, facing populist headwinds over a record migrant influx.

The date, adopted by Dr Merkel’s right-left coalition Cabinet, must still be formally approved by President Joachim Gauck.

But the decision fires the starting gun for anelection campaign that Dr Merkel has said will be her toughest yet due to popular opposition to her liberal asylum policy.

Dr Merkel is nevertheless the clear frontrunner in the race and enjoys solid popularity in Europe’s top economy. A poll released on Wednesday (Jan 18) showed her conservative Christian Union bloc (CDU/CSU) as the strongest political force in the country with 38 per cent.

It was followed in distant second place by the Social Democrats (SPD), current junior partners in Dr Merkel’s “grand coalition” government. And the right-wing anti-immigration Alternative forGermany (AfD), which has railed against Dr Merkel’s decision to let in more than one million asylum seekers since 2015, lost one percentage point compared to last week to reach 11 per cent.

The head of the Forsa opinion research institute which conducted the poll, Mr Manfred Guellner, said a militant attack on a Berlin Christmas market that killed 12 people and was committed by a failed asylum seeker had failed to boost support for the AfD.

“Although the security debate after the Berlin terror attack is running high, the AfD is unable to capitalise on it,” Mr Guellner said in a statement.

“It is actually losing support while the CDU/CSU and the SPD are stabilising.”

The AfD, born as a eurosceptic party in 2013, has attempted to harness public unease with the issue of migration and asylum and, due to its relative strength, threatens to scramble the potentially complicated arithmetic of coalition building after theelection.

The poll, conducted from Jan9 to 13 among a representative sample of 2,053 eligible voters, showed the ecologist Greens and the far-left Linke each at 9per cent and the pro-business Free Democrats at 6 per cent.

US President-elect Donald Trump said in a newspaper interview on Monday (Jan 16) that Dr Merkel had made a “catastrophic mistake” in letting migrants flood intoGermany. However some analysts say German uncertainty over the future of the post-war order with Mr Trump at the helm in Washington could help Dr Merkel’s campaign as voters seek signs of stability.

(AFP)