Berlin: The two people most likely to become Germany’s next chancellor, Olaf Scholz and Armin Laschet, make their last campaign appearances later Saturday ahead of Sunday’s elections.
Polls indicate a small margin between the two, with moderate left-winger Scholz leading the conservative Laschet by just 3 percentage points, dpa reported.
Outgoing Chancellor Angela Merkel, who has led Europe’s biggest economy for nearly 16 years, is supporting her fellow Christian Democrat Laschet at an event in his home city of Aachen on the French border.
Scholz from the centre-left Social Democrats (SPD) is nearer the capital, with a final event in the state of Brandenburg.
The third candidate for chancellor, the Greens’ Annalena Baerbock, officially wrapped up her campaign on Saturday. Now sitting at a distant third in the polls, she is seen as unlikely to have a shot at the chancellorship.
But her party is expected to vastly improve its electoral share compared to the last elections in 2017, and even be part of a future coalition government.
Most observers expect the result of the vote to be a three-way coalition, but it’s not clear who will be in it.
If Laschet’s bloc of Christian Democrats and the Christian Social Union (CDU/CSU) eke out a lead, then it is likely to be a centre-right coalition.
If the SPD triumph, then Germany could swing slightly or strongly to the left, depending on whom Scholz chooses as his coalition partners.
Another option is that Germany continues its current “grand coalition” of SPD and CDU/CSU.
