German election: Voters say Scholz-Merz 'duel' was a draw

One political scandal arguably unique to Germany are allegations of politicians having committed plagiarism while writing their PhD theses. 

It might sound banal, but has contributed to sinking more than a few political careers down the years. Just ask former defense minister and CSU high-flyer Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg. 

On Monday, the Greens' candidate for chancellor, Robert Habeck, issued a video and statement online saying that he expected to face such allegations in the run-up to the election. 

"I have decided to make the whole thing transparent," Habeck wrote. "For I know of the allegations — and was able to check them in advance." 

He said the University of Hamburg, where he studied 25 years ago, "has rebutted the allegations and confirmed that no scientific misbehavior is apparent." 

Instead, Habeck said, the allegations pertained to alleged mistakes in his footnotes, not the document proper. 

He said renowned Austrian plagiarism hunter (yes, there is at least one such thing!) Stefan Weber had been assigned to investigate him.

"I do not know who commissioned him or is paying him, because he keeps his financial sources hidden," Habeck said, before claiming that in one case, journalistic research had showed the right-wing NIUS news website set up by former Bild editor-in-chief Julian Reichelt had been found to be the commissioner.

Habeck said he also expected similar charges to be leveled at his wife by Weber. 

"But my wife is not running for any public office. She is not part of this election campaign. I ask that my family is left out of this," he concluded. 

A leading politician from Germany's Green Party says the televised debate between German Chancellor Scholz and his conservative rival Merz concentrated too heavily on migration policy and not enough on climate change.

Party co-leader Felix Banaszak said the "central question of survival" for current and future generations was ignored in Sunday's 90-minute debate. 
Instead, the top two candidates to become Germany's next leader clashed over issues such as cooperation with the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD), Russia's war in Ukraine and tax. 

"Climate protection was not discussed, even though we are experiencing new extreme events with increasing intensity every year," said the Green politician.

Banaszak criticized the candidates for competing to be the "toughest guy" on the issue of immigration and failing to express empathy for asylum-seekers.

Scholz and Merz are set to face off again next Sunday in a four-way debate with the Green candidate for chancellor, Robert Habeck, and Alice Weidel from the AfD.

Pro-Russian, anti-American parties could win a quarter of the votes in Germany's upcoming federal election.

Both far-right and left-wing populists oppose sanctions against Russia and want to resume imports of Russian gas.

So what could this mean for the election's aftermath? Watch DW's full report here:

For decades, Germany's successful business model was based on a simple formula: purchase raw materials and parts abroad at a good price, then use German engineering prowess and cheap energy to transform them into valuable products "made in Germany."

Russia's invasion of Ukraine, the energy crisis, inflation, and the forced transition to a climate-neutral economy sent energy prices rising, which hit energy-intensive companies hardest.

Read how, two years into an economic recession, German businesses are sounding the alarm and demanding no less than a complete overhaul of economic policy.

For most Germans, the big concerns heading into the February 23 election are the economy and high prices, according to a new survey. 

The online study by German reinsurer R&V of 1,000 people from January 23-25 found that 70% of respondents were concerned about the rising cost of living — up from 57% in a previous survey last year.

"Inflation may have dropped, but the absolute prices have remained high," said Isabelle Borucki from Philipps University of Marburg, one of the advisers to the study.

Of the respondents, 68% fear an economic downturn — up a dramatic 20% on the previous survey.

Germany's economy, the largest in Europe, contracted in 2024 for the second year in a row amid increasing competition from abroad, high energy costs, elevated interest rates and uncertain economic prospects.

About 37% of Germans saw Chancellor Olaf Scholz as the winner of the first televised debate with his main opponent, CDU leader Friedrich Merz, according to an opinion poll by the Wahlen research group.

Roughly 34% of respondents saw Merz as the winner.

Scholz told German station Radio Eins that he believes he "did well" against his rival.

"I'm planning to win this election and I think (the debate) also showed it's possible," he said.

Some 29% of the 1,400 viewers surveyed saw none of the two chancellor candidates as a clear winner. 

Polls predict the conservative CDU/CSU bloc to come out on top in the February 23 federal election.

 

In their first and only expected live television debate ahead of the February 23 election, Chancellor Olaf Scholz mounted an offensive against his main rival to lead the government.

Scholz said Friedrich Merz's tactic of accepting votes from the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) late last month had meant "a breaking of his word and of a taboo."

"And, therefore, one cannot be sure what the future will be like when things become difficult again," Scholz said.

Scholz said postwar Germany had done "very well in the past decades when the democratic parties agreed not to cooperate with the extreme right."

He said Merz's plans to push back undocumented migrants at the border would risk "a European crisis."

Merz said his Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and the allied Bavarian Christian Social Union would not, if they win the election, cooperate or rule with the anti-immigration AfD.

"I want to make it clear here once again that we will not do that," Merz said, adding that "there is no common ground" between his CDU and the AfD.

Merz said he had been forced to act after a crime that shocked Germany — a knife attack that killed a 2-year-old boy and a man. "I could no longer justify it with my conscience," said Merz.

The pair also clashed over Germany's struggling economy. Merz blamed Scholz's government for the country now "deindustrializing."

"We are now in the third year of a recession," Merz said. "That has never happened in Germany before. We have three million unemployed in Germany and the trend is rising."

Scholz highlighted high energy costs caused by Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine. "I did not invade Ukraine," he said.

The German electoral system is a system of "personal proportional representation." This is because German voters cast two ballots in the federal election.

The first is for a party list which is used to calculate proportional support for each party among the electorate.

The second vote is used to elect individual lawmakers directly to the Bundestag from the 299 constituencies across the country.

Those 299 MPs are guaranteed a seat in the German parliament, but the number of seats won per party is deducted from the seats won through proportional representation to make sure that the final share of seats matches the proportional share of votes.

This complex system can lead to a mismatch in the number of seats, and previously more seats were added until each party was again proportionally represented. This led the Bundestag to become the second-largest in the world after the Chinese parliament.

However, in June 2023, new legislation was passed to limit the number of seats to 630, down from the current 733.

A further important rule is that parties must win at least 5% of the proportional vote to get seats in the Bundestag. This was designed to keep out extremist parties.

A number of parties currently in the Bundestag have been polling below the 5% mark, including Free Democrats (FDP) — who previously ruled in coalition with the SPD and Greens — and the Left Party.

In the 2021 election, the Left managed to gain seats despite falling below this threshold thanks to an exception to the rule — if a party wins three direct mandates, then it can gain its full share of seats.

The two remaining incumbent parties of the ruling coalition government are the center-left Social Democratic Party (SPD) and the environmentalist Greens.

They are putting forward current Chancellor Olaf Scholz and Vice-Chancellor Robert Habeck as their respective chancellor candidates.

The two parties have remained pretty steady in the polls, behind their conservative and far-right opponents, however, they will be hoping for last-minute momentum similar to that giving the SPD their win in 2021.

At the head of the polls is the Conservative Democratic Union (CDU) alongside its sister party the Conservative Social Union (CSU) which only stands in Bavaria. Their chancellor candidate Friedrich Merz is the favorite to lead Germany, but he will likely need coalition partners as the CDU/CSU block is currently projected to win only around 30% of the vote.

The far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) is polling in second place, having seen its support surge from the around 10% that it won in 2021 to around 20% in recent polling. Its chancellor candidate is Alice Weidel, but her chances seem slim as all other parties in the Bundestag have said they would refuse to work with the AfD.

The Free Democratic Party (FDP) has seen the opposite, with its support going from over 11% in 2021 to less than 5% in recent polls. This means that the neoliberal party, which previously ruled with the SPD and Greens in a coalition before it withdrew, is facing the possibility of not reaching the threshold that blocks smaller parties. Although the party has not named an official chancellor candidate, the candidate at the top of the party list is Christian Lindner.

The two remaining parties that could help form the Bundestag in February are the socialist Left Party and the Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance (BSW). The BSW split from the Left Party in January 2024. While they both are nominally left-wing parties, the BSW has taken on a number of traditionally right-wing positions such as its stance against immigration. The BSW has particularly high support in the East and is seen as potentially taking votes not just from the Left but also from the AfD.

Both parties are hovering around the 5% threshold mark. While not an official chancellor candidate, Jan van Aken is leading the Left as one of the party's co-leaders.

Despite its low polling numbers, BSW has put forward, unsurprisingly, Sahra Wagenknecht as its chancellor candidate.

With less than a fortnight to go until German voters elect a new government on February 23, DW will be keeping track of the main stories on the campaign trail as well as answering your most pressing questions.

Two of the leading chancellor candidates, Olaf Scholz and Friedrich Merz, held their first debate on Sunday.