Uwe Wagschal, Professor of Political Science at the University of Freiburg spoke to CGTN Europe about the high likelihood of a fragmented and polarized parliament in Germany's election.
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00:00Let's talk now to Uwe Wagschall, Professor of Political Science at the University of Freiburg.
00:06Professor, good to see you. On the eve of this election, how would you describe Germany just at the moment?
00:14Well, at the moment we are very polarised and very fragmented, so it's possible that we'll see nine parties in parliament on Sunday evening.
00:23You might know that we have a 5% threshold, but even then, nine parties in parliament would be very high,
00:32and we have one minor party where the 5% doesn't apply, that's the Danish minority,
00:38but it can be the case that we will see many parties in parliament, but it will result in a very fragmented and highly polarised system.
00:48The rise of the AFD has been striking, hasn't it? I mean, Germany has a haunting relationship with the far right.
00:56Why is the AFD so strong?
01:01Well, there are several reasons for that. We've seen many attacks from migrants in Germany.
01:08Even yesterday there was an attack in Berlin. We've seen many terrorist attacks.
01:14We see problems with the economy. You might recall that we have two years now of zero growth, even minus growth,
01:21and our public finance is in a severe crisis. We have a debt break, and basically most parties want to relieve that.
01:33So we are short of money, we are short of economic growth, and this combines to some extent with the migration issue,
01:41since this is a very costly policy.
01:46It's easy to pretend, isn't it, that elections will produce change.
01:50I mean, whoever wins, there are some incredibly tough choices ahead, aren't there?
01:57Exactly, and we can doubt that the forthcoming coalition will really do hard measures.
02:06Probably we'll have a green coalition of 5.0, that would be the fifth green coalition that we will see.
02:13But it's also possible that we will have a hung parliament.
02:17As I said, we will probably have many parties in parliament, and it can be the case that we have a hung parliament.
02:23And so coalition negotiations will be hard, and it's hard to imagine that the Greens will be part of the government.
02:36So the government is probably rather weak.
02:41Professor, we'll soon know. Thanks for your time. Good to see you.
02:45Professor Uwe Wagschall, Professor of Political Science at the University of Freiburg.