The Christian Democratic Union and Christian Social Union in Bavaria (CDU/CSU) frontrunners, led by wealthy former asset manager Friedrich Merz, are proposing to cut taxes, tighten welfare eligibility, slash immigration, process asylum claims abroad, and boost aid to Ukraine.
The three-way “traffic-light” coalition of Social Democrats (SPD), Free Democrats (FDP) and Greens ruling Germany since 2021 collapsed in November under the weight of its own ideological contradictions and the country’s economic and security challenges.
The outgoing Social Democrat chancellor, Olaf Scholz, fired his liberal finance minister, Christian Lindner, over a bitter months-long budget dispute, then called a confidence vote in parliament deliberately in order to lose it – which he duly did.
Scholz’s Social Democratic party (SPD) aims to support low-income families by cutting VAT on food and tax for low earners and raising the minimum wage.
The CDU and its Bavarian sister party, the Christian Social Union (CSU), have been consistently and comfortably ahead in the polls on about 30%, with the Alternative für Deutschland second on 20-21%.
