A man who was very favored to become the next chancellor of Germany, this week took the extraordinary cube, both for his political future and because of his longtime firewall against his country against political extremism.
He didn’t go as he hoped.
In an effort to portray himself and his party as difficult for immigration, Friedrich Merz, the leader of the Christian Democrats who run a survey, encouraged a number of measures by the borders and accelerating the deportations through Parliament this week. Did this with the help of a heavy right alternative to Germany Party or AFD – whose parts are classified as an extremist by German intelligence agencies.
On Friday, Gambit ended the demolished legislative defeat for Mr. Merz, disagreement in his party and cheerful claims of a new legitimacy from AFD, a chain reaction that could refuse a comfortable headquarters of Mr. Merz at the top of the polling station.
Mr. Merz’s willingness to support AFD’s support has broken a taboo in German politics that has endured since the end of World War II.
Mr. Merz was abandoned by a fierce critique of political opponents, religious leaders, survivors from the Holocaust and former Chancellor Angela Merkel, who remains a member of Mr. Merz’s party. Tens of thousands proved outside the office of the party of Christian Democrats throughout the country.
Despite the criticism and a few chances to move away, Mr. Merz decided to bring rules for migration to the floor on Friday. It failed.
Mr. Merz was trying to strengthen his advantage by showing the voters that he could be believed to have responded to a wide anger for a series of seemingly unrelated murders of immigrants across Germany last year. But even AFD, he couldn’t find votes to change that could actually become a law.
The outcome was the worst thing that Mr. Merz would hope to avoid: no changes to the immigration law, newly energized opponents from the left and the ultimate and extreme right, and doubts the public in his fitness to be a chancellor.
Critics now warn that, if he becomes a chancellor, Mr. Merz could further break the so-called firewall firewall against extremists and work with AFD to form a government. AFD leaders say the drama strengthened and legitimized their party.
Journalists and many political analysts have broken up the decision -making of Mr. Merz. “Chancellor’s candidate wrongly calculated,” wrote Fabian Reinbold in Die Zeitone of the most important weekly works in the country. “And now the pity is great, for him personally, but maybe for a democracy that must be opposed to his enemies.”
Mr. Merz’s decisions this week launched what was a static campaign before the German elections on February 2nd.
A race that was firmly focused on the German economy, which suddenly became everything about the end right and its best problem, migration – which is potential reinforcement of Mr. Merz and AFD, which is the second on national polls.
Surveys still show Mr. Merz with the best chance to win in the race and form the next government. Voters remain furious at the current party, Social Democrats, because of inflation and economic stagnation, and still want to move on to the current chancellor, Olafa Scholz.
But Mr. Merz changed his race and gave his rivals a new argument.
The earthquake and decisions of Mr. Merz who caused him were followed by a knife attack in which two people were killed, one of whom was a child, an Afghan immigrant for whom the authorities said he had mental illness and avoided deportation.
Mr. Merz expressed anger and then set up a course that was supposed to provide voters that Christian Democrats could count on the overhaul of the immigration law.
On Wednesday, he made two separate prop
Both proposals included a language attacking AFD. But AFD voted for them anyway, and his support for a movement that particularly deals with borders and deportations helped him pass.
“We owe people in our country, not at least the victims of violence in the last months, to now put in all the efforts to limit illegal migration, to subtract asylum seekers who are obliged to leave the country in custody and finally deport them,” Mr. Merz said to the legislators . He added that it would be “unbearable” to watch AFD celebrate the adoption of the law.
The next day, Mrs. Merkel gave a rare public comment, deficing Mr. Merz’s reliance on a party that wimsses on the Nazi slogan and which many, including domestic intelligence servicesConsider threatening the country’s constitution.
“I believe it’s wrong,” Mrs. Merkel said in a statement, “to consciously enable most of the German Bundestag to vote with AFD for the first time.”
And others did it. Albrecht Weinberg, a 99-year-old Holocaust survivor, announced that he would return him a medal assigned to him in 2017.
For years, mainstream parties have refused to work with the end right. Although AFD won the increasing share of votes in the national elections, the leaders of the main parties assured the Germans that the party would be out of the Government.
Mr. Merz’s political maneuver was designed to regain voters who descended into the hard right. But for now, he seems to have returned, and AFD seems to be the only clear winner in the affair.
When the measure passed on Wednesday or Wednesday with a thin razor, with several members of Mr. Merza-Sisters, the AFD parties were cheered. They exchanged hugs and took group selfie in a couple of parliament. Mr. Merz only sat his legs, looking radiant.
Great Alice Weidel, an AFD Chancellor candidate, told reporters after Wednesday showed that the elections could produce a management majority in parliament if extremely right and conservatives work together.
On Friday, the rival mainstream parties tried to find a way for conservatives to withdraw from the edge, offering temporary disposal of the law by sending back to the committee. But after a three -hour break in Parliament, Mr. Merz insisted on voting, which he lost with a narrow marge of 11 votes.
In fact, he doubled himself, deviating from the call he made in November, after the three -page coalition of Mr. Scholz had collapsed, for the main parties to avoid working with the ultimate rights to adopt legislation.
One question is whether Mr. Merz can reunite his broken coalition. The second is whether, if he becomes a chancellor, he could further allow the cooperation between conservatives and the ultimate right.
Several legislators have evoked Austria this week, where he now looks likely to look like a ruling coalition between a party with a hard -to -right freedom and an Austrian right center party. It would be The first time the far -wise -trimmed control coalitionAlthough it was a minority partner before.
Mr. Merz continues to say that he will not entertain such a coalition – but that the issue of migration required action, even if that meant voting with AFD.
“There are many who could be worried about the stability of our democracy,” he said on Friday, before voting, “but there are at least so many who are worried about the safety and inner order of our country.”
