Polls Suggest Defeat for Scholz as Germany Faces Snap Election

Germany is set to hold snap elections in February, and early polls suggest Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s party will be defeated.
Europe’s largest economy is facing its second year of contraction, grappling with the end of affordable Russian gas and historic Volkswagen factory closures as it struggles to compete with lower-cost Chinese electric vehicles.
The Greens hold 11 percent; the left-wing nationalist, populist, Eurosceptic, and socially conservative party Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance is at 5 percent; the FDP is at 4 percent; and the left-wing Die Linke stands at 3 percent.
“Now it’s about experience and competence and I am sure that Olaf Scholz is the right candidate,” SPD parliamentary group leader Rolf Muetzenich told reporters.
Although the AfD did not replicate its historic win in neighboring Thuringia, the party’s anti-immigration stance, skepticism of net-zero policies, and opposition to the Russia–Ukraine war continue to resonate with a significant portion of voters.
Scholz has urged other parties to block the AfD from governing.
AfD leaders have called for strict border controls and a reduction in illegal immigrants. The party has also pushed for preserving what it sees as traditional German culture and says that “Islam does not belong to Germany.”
The policies also include opposition to climate action agendas and critiques of European Union integration.
Schenk said that it’s possible that the CDU, FDP, and AfD could hold a minority in Parliament together.
However, he said that conservatives are very afraid of this minority government situation, as the AfD is going to bring forward proposals for economic policy that are “out of the CDU and FDP playbook.”
“Then [the CDU] would either have to maintain this firewall, this cordon sanitaire, and basically refuse their own proposals, or they would have to accept the AfD proposals,” he said.
“There is a very interesting constitutional provision in the German constitution, exactly for this case, which would allow … basically for the government to bypass the Parliament and only pass legislation with the upper chamber, the Federal Council.
“But nobody ever has triggered this ‘nuclear option.’”