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German election: Why this vote matters German election: Why this is a turning point
(3 days later)
If the polls are right, Angela Merkel is heading for four more years at the top in Germany. But when Germans vote on 24 September, far more is at stake than one of the biggest jobs in Europe. Angela Merkel has won four more years as chancellor and will continue to command the stage in Germany. But this is her party's worst performance with her as leader and overnight Germany's political scene has changed.
For the first time since World War Two, six parties are expected to enter the Bundestag, including a group of right-wing nationalists. The third biggest force in Germany is the nationalist and populist right of Alternative for Germany, or AfD.
What's so important? So what does this shake-up mean for Germany?
This is the first national vote since the Merkel government opened Germany's doors to an influx of migrants and refugees in 2015, letting in almost 900,000 people. What has changed?
The conservative chancellor promised Germans they would manage, and they did. But politically her Christian Democrat (CDU) party took a hit, at least for a time. She is seeking a fourth term as chancellor. On the surface, very little. But in reality everything has. Germany is at a turning point.
Big changes are taking place in German politics. It is fragmenting, and there is a real chance that the anti-immigration, anti-Islam Alternative for Germany (AfD), which is not yet represented in parliament, could secure third place. Angela Merkel has secured a fourth term, but she knows she has presided over the CDU's worst electoral performance since 1949.
So far AfD is only represented on a regional level. Some of its candidates have expressed far-right statements. For the first time since the 1950s, Germany will have six parties in the Bundestag, and the two giants of the political centre are at their lowest ebb.
The last parliament (above) had four parties represented - counting the CDU and its Bavarian CSU sister party as one. The next Bundestag could have an unprecedented six - out of a total of 34 parties taking part. Apart from the big two parties, four others are all polling upwards of 8%: the Greens, socialist Die Linke (The Left), AfD and the free-market liberal Free Democrats (FDP). Election marks shift in German politics
This election matters to the rest of Europe, too. Germany plays a dominant role in the European Union, partly because of the size of its economy. It also pays more than any other country into the EU budget. Mrs Merkel's main challenger, Martin Schulz, dubbed her "the biggest loser", even though it was his centre-left SPD that registered its worst ever showing and, barring a dramatic change of mind, will form the opposition.
Is the migrant crisis still a hot topic? Nationalists take national stage
It's right up there, along with anything related to it: immigration, asylum, integration and deportation of failed asylum seekers. The real winners of this election are the nationalist, right-wing Alternative for Germany, along with the pro-business FDP, who have returned to parliament after four years in the wilderness and are likely to return to government.
The German news website Focus complained that the topic dominated the one big TV-duel between Angela Merkel and her main rival - Martin Schulz of the SPD. "Is there really no other issue besides refugees?" it asked. Within an hour of AfD's success becoming clear, joint leader Alexander Gauland promised to "hunt down the government, Mrs Merkel, and get our country and people back". They will be a loud, confident opposition party with the chancellor in their sights.
Angela Merkel's ratings are largely untouched by the migration debate. After initially opening the door to Syrian refugees, the government then took a tougher line, promising deportations after hundreds of mainly North African men had attacked women in Cologne as 2016 began. With around 88 seats in the Bundestag and 13% of the popular vote they will make life very uncomfortable for her government. They argue the chancellor has broken a number of laws with her refugee policy and say a committee should investigate her.
But AfD's poll numbers have risen during the campaign largely because of its focus on immigration. Take apart the right-wing party's results and you will see a big east-west split. AfD are the second biggest party in the east of the country with over 20% of the vote. In the eastern state of Saxony they were even neck and neck with the CDU on just under 30%.
There are other big themes too: social injustice, benefits and poverty are key, as are internal security and education. That is why Mr Schulz wants to focus on fair wages, better schools and secure pensions. Amongst men in the east they were the most popular party, three points ahead of the CDU.
Perhaps surprisingly, German public spending on education was lower in 2014 than the EU average. Their showing in the west was around 11%.
Brexit has been largely absent from the election campaign and did not figure in the TV duel at all. AfD attracted a million voters from the CDU and 470,000 from the SPD, as well as over a million new voters.
Is Merkel a shoo-in? So why did people vote AfD?
Not yet, because whatever the polls say there are millions of undecided voters - perhaps a third of the electorate. They simply addressed the concerns of voters worried about the influx of migrants and refugees. A fascinating survey of AfD voters on Sunday showed:
But with the SPD still around 14 points behind Mrs Merkel's party in the polls, Martin Schulz is unlikely to attract all of them. He failed to register any major blows during their TV debate and his plea for a second duel has fallen on deaf ears. If anything, the party's support has fallen as election day approaches. If this election was just about the economy, the two parties that have steered Germany through the past four years would have sailed through.
Part of his problem is that his party has been the junior partner in Mrs Merkel's Grand Coalition for the past four years. Germany's economy is doing very nicely, thank you. GDP is growing, unemployment is low and the government receives more in tax than it spends.
One reason Mrs Merkel might feel secure is that Germany's economy is doing very nicely, thank you. GDP is growing and the government receives more in tax than it spends. But this was the first federal vote since the Merkel government opened Germany's doors to an influx of migrants and refugees in 2015, letting in over around 1.3 million people.
Will there be change at the top? The conservative chancellor promised Germans they would manage, and they did. Asylum applications have fallen dramatically in the past year and Mrs Merkel has taken a tougher line on deportations.
Mr Schulz has already appeared to reject the idea of another CDU-led grand coalition, but there are few realistic alternatives. But the issues of asylum, integration and deportation of failed asylum seekers hovered over the entire campaign to such an extent that immigration monopolised the only TV debate between the two challengers for chancellor, Mrs Merkel and Martin Schulz.
For Mrs Merkel the choices are these: And AfD were the party that benefited most, even though they were not in the studio. Their poll numbers went up as the campaign progressed.
If the SPD's Martin Schulz has a chance: Rarely has the general atmosphere in the country been so toxic and confrontational during an election campaign, Focus magazine observed.
How far right are AfD?
One very revealing number from the survey of AfD voters was that 55% believed the party did not distance itself sufficiently from far-right positions. In other words, more than half the party's voters felt they were too extreme but voted for them anyway.
They espouse anti-immigrant and anti-Islam policies and several of their leading figures have made remarks widely condemned as extremist. Their programme calls for a ban on minarets and considers Islam incompatible with German culture. "Islam does not belong to Germany," the party believes.
Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel warned voters ahead of the poll against having "real Nazis in the German Reichstag for the first time since the end of World War Two". Germany's Central Council of Jews said its worst fears had come true.
What they have said:
More on the AfD:
Who will run Germany now?
There appears to be just one option for Angela Merkel, now that Martin Schulz has ruled out a "grand coalition" of the two old giants. That means that he will lead the opposition, and not AfD.
But it also means that we are staring at a "Jamaica" coalition, so-called after the colours of the parties involved: the black of the CDU, the yellow of the liberal FDP, and the Greens.
It is an unlikely pairing and there is little precedent for it. A prototype has just begun work in the northern state of Schleswig-Holstein, but there are genuine differences between the liberals and Greens.
The Greens want to phase out 20 coal-fired power plants and the FDP disagree. But Mr Schulz thinks it could work: "I think this might be what the country needs," he said late on Sunday. "The parties on the right and left as part of this opposition - this will lead to the debates we need to be having."
Faces to watchFaces to watch
Who are the new stars trying to challenge the big two parties? If the FDP returns to power, watch out for its leader, Christian Lindner, a charismatic 38-year-old who has tried to focus on education and a "digital first" campaign. Party colleague Alexander Graf Lambsdorff will also be eyeing a top job.
The FDP is back from the wilderness, led by Christian Lindner, a charismatic 38-year-old who has tried to focus on education and a "digital first" campaign. If the FDP returns to government, party colleague Alexander Graf Lambsdorff will also be eyeing a top job. The left-leaning Green Party is led by centrists Katrin Göring-Eckardt and Cem Özdemir. He has called for Angela Merkel to be much tougher with Turkey, while she has held positions in the Protestant Church. The Greens will be looking for guarantees from the chancellor on environmental protection and the Paris climate change pact. "The social question is going to be at the heart of these debates about the future, and if the SPD is not interested in governing, we will be the party to carry this debate, especially in coalition talks," says Ms Göring-Eckardt.
The other three parties have two joint leaders each. A note on terminology: The BBC uses the term migrant to refer to all people on the move who have yet to complete the legal process of claiming asylum. This group includes people fleeing war-torn countries such as Syria, who are likely to be granted refugee status, as well as people who are seeking jobs and better lives, who governments are likely to rule are economic migrants.
The left-leaning Green Party is led by centrists Katrin Göring-Eckardt and Cem Özdemir. He has called for Angela Merkel to be much tougher with Turkey, while she has held positions in the Protestant Church.
Die Linke is represented by Sahra Wagenknecht and Dietmar Bartsch, while the right-wing, nationalist AfD is led by Alice Weidel and Alexander Gauland. Latest opinion polls suggest it could attract up to 12% of the vote.
How right-wing is AfD?
Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel has spoken of the prospect of having "real Nazis in the German Reichstag for the first time since the end of World War Two". Is that just election rhetoric?
AfD's programme is heavily anti-immigrant, and particularly anti-Islam. It calls for a ban on minarets and considers Islam incompatible with German culture. One of its election posters reads: "Burkas? We like bikinis" Several of its candidates have been linked to far-right remarks.
Who gets to vote for whom?
Germans over 18 vote in elections to the Bundestag every four years, in a mixed system of first-past-the-post and proportional representation.
An estimated 61.5 million people have two votes. The first is a direct vote for candidates in 299 constituencies, the second is for a party list in each of Germany's 16 states. Every candidate who wins the constituency race gets into the Bundestag. But a party needs either 5% of the second vote nationwide to be represented - or three constituency seats.
There are another 299 seats on the party list, but extra seats are also created so that the size of a party in the Bundestag is in line with its share of the second vote. In the previous Bundestag there were 630 seats.
A total of 4,828 candidates are fighting the election, 29% of them women. Only the Greens and Die Linke have selected half their candidates as women. The oldest candidate is 89 and the youngest 18.