“It doesn’t matter who rules”: Merkel is making her last campaign appearance as Chancellor in Laschet’s homeland. The other parties are also trying to send messages a few hours before election day.
Together with Laschet, Merkel warned in the final spurt of the election campaign against instability in Germany after the election. “It doesn’t matter who rules,” said the outgoing head of government. The ex-CDU chairwoman called for the election of her party friend – also with reference to his clearly pro-European stance: “Tomorrow it will be about Germany remaining stable.” She gave both foreign and domestic political reasons. For example, Germany will receive less support from its partners in terms of secret service cooperation if it no longer provides security itself.
Merkel also criticized the fact that many parties had talked about distributing money in the election campaign. “Working out and distributing are two sides of the same coin,” she said. Merkel warned against strangling the economy through tax increases. She applauded heavily when Laschet again warned against a left alliance of the SPD, the Greens and the Left. The CDU boss, for his part, praised the commitment of the Fridays for Future movement. However, he emphasized that the climate-neutral restructuring of the economy by 2045 would be a major challenge. “We have to do this in a socially acceptable way. Otherwise this country will collapse,” said Laschet, referring to the coal phase-out, for example.
Dohnanyi: Apart from Scholz, no economic expertise
Other parties are also using the day before the election for their last big rallies. In three polls published on Friday, the SPD was each ahead of the Union. In third place are the Greens at a clear distance ahead of the FDP, AfD and the Left. The outcome of the election and, above all, the formation of a coalition afterwards are therefore considered completely open.
The FDP with its party leader Christian Lindner ends its nationwide election campaign with rallies in Cologne and Düsseldorf. SPD chancellor candidate Olaf Scholz is mainly in his constituency in Potsdam. The Green Chancellor candidate Annalena Baerbock is also running as a direct candidate. In addition, the ex-state chairwoman of the CDU, Saskia Ludwig, the former FDP general secretary Linda Teuteberg and the left-wing member of the Bundestag Norbert Müller will be in the running.
Hamburg’s ex-mayor Klaus von Dohnanyi, 93, would prefer to see an alliance of the SPD, CDU and FDP with Scholz as chancellor. “But my favorite coalition will probably not come about because it would hardly be reasonable for the SPD to have a majority in the cabinet that is more ‘black’,” said the Social Democrat Hamburger Abendblatt. In his opinion, the liberals would have problems with a three-party alliance made up of the SPD, the Greens and the FDP. “Red-red-green go together best on paper, but I think it would be dangerous because in this combination, apart from Olaf Scholz, there is currently no economic expertise at all,” says von Dohnanyi. “I fear the Greens because I see too much spontaneous naivety in Ms. Baerbock. I can really only imagine with horror that she would become Foreign Minister.”