Parties confirm candidates and manifestos as the German election heat up

CGTN Europe

Germany’s political parties have been selecting their candidates and signing off manifestos before the election begins in six weeks time.  The vote was called after the three party coalition collapsed.  CGTN’s Peter Oliver has the latest

Transcript

00:00It was all smiles at the Social Democrat Party conference in Berlin.

00:07The current German leader, Olaf Scholz, was confirmed as the SPD candidate for chancellor.

00:13Only five delegates out of nearly 600 failed to back him.

00:23The chancellor said Germany was at a crossroads and that he would implement

00:27tax and investment plans to help all sections of German society.

00:33He also said that the far right posed a threat to the institutions of German government.

00:44Others want to demolish our democracy with their chainsaws. We are fighting to preserve

00:48and renew the successful Made in Germany brand for the ordinary people in our country. So we fight.

00:57A rousing reception for the chancellor here at party conference. But if Olaf Scholz and the SPD

01:08really do have ambitions of returning to governance after this election,

01:12they're going to have to overcome one heck of a gap in the polls.

01:17They are currently third in the polls on 16 percent. That's 14 points behind the

01:21conservatives on 30 percent and six points behind the second-placed AFD on 22 percent.

01:30Health Minister Karl Lauterbach believes there's still time to turn things around.

01:34I do think that the election campaign is just starting and the issues that we basically put

01:43forward are important issues for the general population. Payable rent, long-term care,

01:51health care, retirement benefits, security, internal security, external security.

01:57So I think in the next couple of weeks the message will

02:01come forward and the election is much more open than many people believe.

02:10While things were fairly festive in Berlin, they were more fraught in Saxony where the far right

02:16AFD were going through the same process of approving a candidate for chancellor.

02:21Delegates were delayed by protesters en route to the venue. But once things got up and running,

02:27Alice Weidel, who was publicly backed by tech billionaire Elon Musk, was confirmed as the AFD

02:33candidate. She left no ambiguity over what her migration policy would be if elected as chancellor.

02:40Close the borders completely and turn back anyone entering the country illegally and without papers.

02:52And a very clear message to the whole world. The German borders are closed.

02:57They're friends. They're closed.

03:02In Hamburg, the Christian Democratic Union rubber-stamped Friedrich Merz as its candidate

03:07for the conservative bloc. He lashed out at Chancellor Scholz's recent rebuke of US

03:13President-elect Donald Trump's coveting of neighboring territories.

03:22I honestly cannot imagine that the American president is in any way impressed by a four

03:26minute press conference or a four minute press statement by the German chancellor

03:30on Greenland, the Gulf of Mexico or the Panama Canal. Moralizing from Germany has never made

03:36an impression in America and has usually had the opposite effect. Merz believes he can provide the

03:42right balance between Europe and the USA. The conservatives are running on a manifesto of

03:47keeping Germany's strict rules on government borrowing and lowering income and sales taxes.

03:55With the other main parties, the Greens, the Free Democrats and BSW also approving their

04:00candidates, we are set for a six-week final dash to the Bundestag and the chancellor's office.

04:06Peter Oliver, CGTN, Berlin.

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