How the four top candidates go to the polls

At the weekend, however, the Chancellor was still working hard for her Union. On Friday, she performed at the CSU’s closing event in Munich together with Bavaria’s Prime Minister Markus Söder and Laschet. On Saturday she again promoted Laschet in his hometown Aachen. Merkel gave both foreign and domestic political reasons for supporting Laschet.

For example, Germany will receive less support from its partners when it comes to cooperation with the secret service if it is no longer responsible for the security of the country itself. She criticized the fact that many parties had talked about distributing money in the election campaign. “But working out and distributing are two sides of the same coin,” she said, warning against strangling the economy through tax increases. The question is whether your support will not come too late.

Because for Armin Laschet the election campaign went very badly: It was not until January that he was confirmed as CDU chairman. After eleven agonizing days in April, he was able to assert himself against CSU leader Markus Söder as Union chancellor candidate.

After that, things had to go fast, too fast: First the election manifesto, which Söder interpreted differently after publication, especially in terms of tax policy, and from which he further distinguished himself through his Bayern plan including a maternal pension and other social benefits and on top of that did not stop, against his To tease conquerors.

There were also breakdowns for which he was responsible: Laschet laughed in Erftstadt, which was destroyed by the floods, while the Federal President spoke serious words in front of the cameras. That was “stupid”, Laschet later apologized. But it got stuck: He did not understand the seriousness of the situation. Laschet could give clever speeches as he wanted, attack Olaf Scholz and Annalena Baerbock at the Triell, set topics, none of which helped. The polls sank and sank, then seemed in the basement as if concreted, especially its popularity ratings. Only two weeks before the election did the situation stabilize and there was a slight upward trend again.

Scholz has an appointment with the people

The election campaign went better for Olaf Scholz. When he was asked a few days ago whether he has an appointment with Saskia Esken on election Sunday, who wants to force him to take a left course, Scholz replied: “I have an appointment with the people next Sunday.” For a long time it looked as if it were election day would be a dark day for Scholz.

But now the 63-year-old looks humbly but full of joy on Sunday, as people around him say. The good poll numbers had recently spurred Scholz, the otherwise rather stiff Scholz moved through the election campaign with a bouncy. Again and again he said that the encouragement from the population “touched” him. Scholz was more approachable, more relaxed.

The SPD’s election campaign also contributed to the good performance of the SPD. After the election debacle of 2017, the SPD vowed to learn from its mistakes. She had a long report drawn up by external experts with the exact title: “Learning from mistakes”. And the amazing thing: the comrades stuck to it.

At his closing rally in his constituency in Potsdam on Saturday, Scholz confirmed his desire for a coalition with the Greens. “This is my favorite coalition,” he said. The Green Chancellor candidate Annalena Baerbock is also running as a direct candidate in the Potsdam constituency.

Most recently, Scholz had repeatedly emphasized his good relationship with FDP leader Christian Lindner. He needs Lindner for a traffic light coalition with the Greens. Otherwise only an alliance with the Left Party will bring him to the Chancellery.

Lindner is persistent in the direction of the SPD

But the FDP leader was stubborn until the end. On Saturday in Düsseldorf he again emphasized a tough stance in possible negotiations for the formation of a government. Just as the FDP broke off talks on a Jamaica coalition with the Union and the Greens in 2017 because Germany would have been sent “on a green-black drift to the left with marginal FDP participation”, so this time too they would stand firm.

“We are not ready to send our country on a left drift in 2021 either,” he said. One is only ready for “a government in the middle”, in which there will be no tax increases and no easing of the debt brake. Scholz should not have liked to hear that he was again critical of the SPD and the Greens.

During the FDP election campaign, he assumed that these two parties were “wide open” to a coalition with the left. Lindner had repeatedly made it clear in recent weeks that he favored a coalition with the Union and the Greens.

Also read:

In his one-hour speech, he underpinned the plan to advance climate protection by reducing bureaucracy. Approval procedures urgently need to be accelerated so that industrial companies can implement CO2-reduction projects. Germany’s industry is innovative and ready for investments, but lengthy approval procedures are a block on the leg.

There were tough weeks behind Annalena Baerbock

The Green Chancellor candidate Baerbock, on the other hand, does not want to worry about a possible coalition after the federal election. “I’m campaigning until the last minute,” she said on Saturday in Potsdam at a meeting with citizens.

Do not participate in the mind games of others. Hard weeks lie behind the Greens. Until recently, Annalena Baerbock’s campaign was unable to recover from initial mistakes. When she took over the top candidacy in April, it still looked as if the Greens might conquer the Chancellery. With 28 percent, the party was stronger than ever and also ahead of the Union and the SPD.

As a result, the polls dwindled inexorably – despite all the perseverance slogans of the party leadership. “A duel has turned into a three-way fight, we actually imagined it differently,” said Baerbock in the final spurt of the election campaign to the Handelsblatt. “But we give everything to become as strong as possible.” Until the very end, she spoke of moving into the Chancellery – for example at the “final round” on ARD and ZDF on Thursday evening.

The Greens want to be the strongest force, she said. The green bar on Sunday from 6 p.m. will tell you whether the goal will be achieved. It probably isn’t.

More: Interview with four top candidates