Damian McGuinness
Appearances
Global News Podcast
The rebels turned rulers providing law and order in Syria
It is a bit counterintuitive, but essentially it's the only way, according to the German constitution, to spark early elections. It's a rule set up after the Second World War, when the modern German constitution was written, in order to prevent the sort of instability we saw during the Weimar Republic before the Second World War.
Global News Podcast
The rebels turned rulers providing law and order in Syria
So what we've seen so far, really, since the governing coalition collapsed in November, Chancellor Schultz has led a minority government. And what that means in practice is that he can't pass any laws without the support of the opposition Conservatives. So the only way out of that for him is to have early elections, which will now take place ordinarily on February 23rd.
Global News Podcast
The rebels turned rulers providing law and order in Syria
But is Chancellor Schultz not reading the opinion polls? Well, that is a big question. I mean, he appears to believe that he can win a second term as chancellor. But as you say, Alex, his poll ratings are absolutely terrible. His government was unpopular. His personal ratings are really poor. But he does have a few slight chances.
Global News Podcast
The rebels turned rulers providing law and order in Syria
One of them is a lot of things can happen over the next month or two. A lot of voters say they don't know who to vote for and a lot of voters are very undecided. Also, the loyalty to particular parties is very weak at the moment. There's a lot of dissatisfaction with politics. There's various upstart parties. The far-right AFD is doing pretty well.
Global News Podcast
The rebels turned rulers providing law and order in Syria
And there's a new upstart left-wing populist party, an anti-migrant nativist party, quite a radical party. But that's also creating a bit of uncertainty. So you've got more parties than ever. You've got a more radical debate than ever. You've got more voters who are uncertain than ever about who they're going to choose.
Global News Podcast
The rebels turned rulers providing law and order in Syria
And the other saving grace that Olaf Scholz potentially has is that his main rival, the conservative leader Friedrich Merz, is also, frankly, pretty unpopular with voters. So I think Olaf Scholz is probably hoping that Friedrich Merz would say something objectionable, which would put off undecided voters.
Global News Podcast
The rebels turned rulers providing law and order in Syria
It has to be said with the AFD, they're not going to get into government. No one is going to work with them because they're seen as so toxic. And some parts of the party have been deemed by courts as undemocratic, even anti-democratic. That annoys some parts of the electorate, though, doesn't it? Obviously, for AFD voters, yes, they would say, well, it's just the system working against us.
Global News Podcast
The rebels turned rulers providing law and order in Syria
But if the AFD do really well, it's going to make it even more difficult to form a stable coalition because you either need more partners who are more likely to disagree with each other, or you're going to have very unusual coalitions where people are going to find it hard to agree. And the difficulty is Germany has to make some difficult decisions which are going to be unpopular with people.
Global News Podcast
The rebels turned rulers providing law and order in Syria
And to do that, you need quite an assertive, united government to push through some quite radical measures.