BERLIN (AP) – Four candidates are ordering Germany’s next leader in Sunday’s election. The Prime Minister is an incumbent, an opposition leader, the current vice-prime minister and for the first time the far-right party leader.
Olaf Scholz
The 66-year-old has been German prime minister since December 2021. The Social Democrats on the centre left have a wealth of government experience, previously serving as mayor of Hamburg and German workers and finance minister. As Prime Minister, he soon found himself dealing with an unexpected crisis. He began efforts to modernize German troops after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, creating German Ukraine’s second largest weapons supplier. His government tried to prevent energy crunching and counter high inflation. However, his three-person coalition became famous in the civil war in November and collapsed in November as they discussed how to stimulate Europe’s largest economy, which had been shrinking for the past two years.
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Friedrich Merz
The 69-year-old opposition leader in Germany is at the forefront of the election campaign, with his central right union bloc conducting major polls. He became the leader of his Christian Democratic Union Party after longtime Chancellor Angela Merkel (former rival) resigned in 2021. In his election campaign, he made irregular transitions a central issue. Mertz has no government experience. He joined the European Parliament in 1989 and five years later became a lawmaker in Germany. He took a break from active politics for several years after 2009, practiced as a lawyer, and led the German branch of Blackrock of the Supervisory Board.
Robert Haveck
The 55-year-old is a green candidate for environmentalist protectionism. He is also Germany’s current vice-prime minister and minister of economy and climate, responsible for energy issues. As a co-leader of the Greens from 2018 to 2022, he was primarily sided with the increasing popularity of the party, but in 2021 he was first to run for Prime Minister’s job by Analena Bearbock (now the German Foreign Minister). I did it like that. Habeck’s record as Minister painted mixed reviews, particularly plans his ministry had drawn to replace fossil fuel heating systems with a greener alternative that deepened the government’s division.
Alice Weidel
The 46-year-old has made his first bid for Germany or AFD’s far-right anti-immigration alternative the country’s top job. Weidel, a training economist, joined the party shortly after it was founded in 2013. She has been a co-leader of the party’s parliamentary group since the party first won a national parliament seat in 2017. Since 2022, the party itself along with Tinokurpara. In December she was nominated as a candidate for Prime Minister. There is no realistic path to top job right now, as other parties say they won’t work with AFD.
