German voters not turned off by Merz's far-right gambit

DW (English)

With migration a top issue in Germany's upcoming election, a new poll shows chancellor candidate Friedrich Merz up four points after backing from the far right to pass a nonbinding resolution on border policy. DW's Matthew Moore has this analysis.

Transcript

00:00Let's speak to DW's political correspondent, Matthew Moore, for more on this story.

00:04Matthew, some thought that the outcry over last week's parliamentary vote on migration could

00:10really hurt the CDU's support, but that doesn't look to be the case at all. Friedrich Merz is

00:15probably pretty relieved today, right?

00:19You can bet that he's pretty relieved, Claire. This was a very highly anticipated poll.

00:25There had been widespread speculation that the CDU poll numbers would suffer because of this

00:30really highly charged debate and this crisis really in Germany in the last couple of weeks.

00:36That hasn't materialised. And in fact, as you just said, the CDU have gained a point and the

00:42AFD too. And it really does just kind of firmly kind of cements their lead, if you like, in the

00:48polls, because there was big questions whether Friedrich Merz had taken a gamble that wouldn't

00:52pay off. And what's really interesting is that you see that he and the AFD gained, which seems

00:58to kind of suggest that this issue of having the migration debate in the public eye is something

01:03that has helped them in the last couple of weeks. But it's turbocharged this debate in the country.

01:08People are really concerned that this will open the door to the AFD. And I've actually been out

01:13on the streets of the outskirts of Berlin and kind of gauging the mood. And I think we can hear

01:17from my report. It's been a messy couple of weeks for Friedrich Merz. On the one hand,

01:24he set the agenda with his calls for tougher migration rules. On the other, he's ignited a

01:29debate about whether he would form a coalition with the far-right AFD, despite insisting he

01:35would not. The pressure comes after he relied on the votes of the AFD to push through a motion on

01:40migration, breaking a taboo. For me, they're Nazis, and I don't want that again. So far to

01:47the right, that's not on. Of course, working together, no way. Merz also said, well, something

01:54that he introduces as a motion can't be wrong from the outset, just because the wrong people agree.

02:01The fact that it went to parliament and actually people voted it,

02:05and it was not the far-right that brought it into motion, it was scary.

02:11I actually wanted to vote CDU, but the fact that he bothered me a lot, quite honestly.

02:19That's the risk for Friedrich Merz, that his attempt to wrestle the migration issue from the

02:23AFD could backfire and raise his questions about his credibility, although market traders here

02:30support his policies. You feel you've been left alone, and then you have the thought,

02:35close the borders, maybe it will be better. Closing the borders again, I'm absolutely for that.

02:43The CDU says, we don't work with them, but we get support from this party for the things we

02:49want to get done. And that's why I don't really see the CDU as credible. Others are concerned

02:56that border controls could divide Europe. To create Europe, politicians invested a lot

03:04of their time, invested a lot of their efforts in it. And if we throw it all away,

03:11I don't know where that will lead. Where will this all end up?

03:20For some, the mood in the country, an alarming echo of Germany's past.

03:25For the last one month, I felt that this history is coming true,

03:32to an extent that I am planning to get my investments so that I'm ready to go.

03:38You're planning to kind of make arrangements?

03:40I'm making arrangements because I also have kids, and it started like that, right, from history.

03:47And this is the fear I have.

03:49A reminder that for many, there is much more than an election at stake.

03:55Matthew, a real sense of fear from some of those people who you spoke to

03:59out in the outskirts of Berlin. For those who haven't been following the ins and outs of this,

04:03what would you say is the main thing that has made them so afraid?

04:09The people that I spoke to. So there was migrants. I spoke to many people. And you know how it is,

04:13not everybody gets into the final report. But that sense, that woman there, that was a genuine

04:18sense of fear that something had changed in the last couple of weeks in Germany.

04:22I spoke to another man who'd been here for 10 years, who said that he felt kind of hurt by the

04:27debate because the debate has become, especially around migration, it's become very kind of

04:32divisive. On the other hand, you had people who'd been here for 30 years, who'd integrated, who said,

04:38you know, yeah, I've seen over time how Germany has struggled to deal with the people coming into

04:43the country and integrating. So it was a mix, but at the same time, just generally that heart and

04:48that fear is very much there. And you saw it as well in recent weeks, we've had protests across

04:54the country, people genuinely concerned that the actions in the Bundestag of Friedrich Merz and the

04:59centre-right Christian Democrats of voting alongside the AfD, that that somehow just opens

05:06the door, not necessarily in this election or following this election, but in the future to the

05:11AfD having an opportunity to govern here in Germany. Now, your report does mention this taboo

05:18that's been broken, the question of whether the so-called firewall here in Germany has

05:23fallen or has cracks in it. What does the latest poll have to say about that?

05:29Yeah, it's quite interesting because we here in Berlin, we were talking about this and it's

05:33highly controversial to do what Friedrich Merz did, which was to table a motion in Parliament

05:39and say, I don't care if this passes with AfD votes. And it happened. And that's the first

05:43time it's ever happened since the AfD got into Parliament in 2017. And that is because we have

05:49this firewall, this taboo about working with the AfD so that the other parties in Parliament say

05:54we won't do it because we consider the AfD to be too extreme. What we've seen in the latest polling

06:00is when you look at the numbers, 49% of people asked think that that's completely unacceptable,

06:05but 44% think it is okay to go ahead and table a motion, even if you know it can only pass with

06:11far-right votes. So it just shows you how split the public is. And that's something I kind of find

06:17when I'm out there talking to people on the streets of Germany, that a lot of people find it

06:21hard to understand how you can have a party in Parliament like the far-right AfD who are

06:27completely shut out of the legislative making process. So that for them is hard to understand.

06:33And for me, it's no surprise that that comes through in the polls that we've seen.

06:37And what about CDU leader Friedrich Merz? I mean, he's really tried to clarify his position

06:42here, saying that there won't be future collaboration with the AfD.

06:46Do you think voters trust him on that message?

06:51That was his big gamble, right? He wanted to take control of this issue of migration,

06:56which is high up on people's lists of concerns. But in doing so, he risked igniting a debate about

07:01whether or not he would potentially work with the AfD. He's been on the defensive in the last week

07:05saying that is absolutely not the case with me. I will not work with the AfD. What we've seen in

07:11the polls now is that 44 per cent of people think that he will stick to that pledge, but 43 per cent

07:17think he will not. So again, there's question marks about his credibility there. Having said that,

07:23in the polls at the moment, he hasn't been damaged by that, and he's actually gained.

07:27The question is long term how that impacts the party and the debate here in Germany.

07:32Well, thank you so much. That is our political correspondent, Matthew Moore, speaking to us today.

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