(ANSA-AFP) - BERLIN, FEB 21 - When Germans vote on Sunday,
conservative Friedrich Merz is the strong favourite to become
the next chancellor after a bitterly fought campaign roiled by
the rise of the AfD, a far-right party vocally backed by Team
Trump. Barring any last-minute upset, the CDU/CSU bloc of Merz
is leading the polls and on course to defeat Chancellor Olaf
Scholz's Social Democrats (SPD) to make the 69-year-old former
investment lawyer the next leader of Europe's biggest economy.
His victory would cap months of political turmoil since Scholz's
troubled three-party coalition imploded in November -- but grave
challenges loom for Merz and his pledge to fix Germany's ailing
economy and rebuild its international stature. The election
comes at a time of rapid and unsettling change for Germany and
Europe, as US President Donald Trump has reached out over their
heads to Russia to settle the Ukraine war, sparking grave fears
for future transatlantic ties. Whatever divides them, Merz,
Scholz and other German politicians share a sense of alarm over
what lies ahead for Germany, which built its post-war democracy
under American tutelage and grew prosperous under the US-led
NATO umbrella. The one party to relish the disruption has been
the far-right and Moscow-friendly Alternative for Germany (AfD),
which has received strong support from Trump's inner circle,
including Vice President JD Vance and tech billionaire Elon
Musk. Like Trump, it has strongly opposed irregular immigration,
and has capitalised on fears stoked by a string of deadly knife
and car-ramming attacks blamed on migrants and asylum seekers.
(ANSA-AFP).
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