German voters 'undecided' hours before polls open

With polls suggesting a third of the electorate is still undecided about who to vote for in the German election, candidates have been out and about doing some last-minute campaigning.

While Angela Merkel is widely predicted to be re-elected chancellor, her Conservative CDU party seems to have taken a last-minute dip in support. It has slipped to 34 percent, polls suggest, while Martin Schulz’s Social Democrats are polling at 21 percent. He thanked his supporters during a walkabout in his hometown Aachen, western Germany. His SPD Party, which has been the junior partner in Germany’s Grand Coalition since 2013, is predicted to suffer its worst-ever result. However, Schulz said he was confident everyone would be surprised by the outcome of the election.

The Liberals, under Christian Lindner, are expected to make a comeback after failing to reach the five percent threshold required to enter parliament four years ago. The party is vying to win the third-highest number of votes and has said it wants to be offered the position of Finance Minister, if it enters into a coalition with the CDU.

The AfD – Alternative for Germany – has also been out on the campaign trail. Polls suggest support for the anti-immigration party has risen to 13 percent, meaning it is increasingly more likely to become the first far-right party to enter the German Parliament since the end of World War II. It could also become the biggest opposition party.

What remains to be seen is what kind of government will be formed, as our reporter Lutz Faupel noted:
“For Angela Merkel it was – once more – a campaign from the position of German chancellor. There seems to be no doubt that her Union will be the strongest force in the new parliament. The voters will decide exactly how strong and with whom she will govern. The election is also a reflection on her chancellorship.”