Germany’s Christian Democrats contemplate defeat

LAST MONTHCDU)CDUCSUCDUCDUSPDCDU/CSUCDU/CSU the Christian Democratic Union ( in Spandau, a borough in Berlin, stuck a campaign placard for local candidates over one of Armin Laschet, the main standard-bearer of the and the Christian Social Union (), its Bavarian sister party, in the federal election on September 26th. It was a mistake, says a local politician, but stories abound about chapters across Germany declining to put up Laschet placards. On a two-hour walk through Charlottenburg and Mitte, two other boroughs in Berlin, your correspondent did not spot a single one (though there were several with the grinning face of Olaf Scholz, the Social Democratic Party’s candidate).Some in the are still defiant in public, but the mood is defeatist. The conservative party is used to success: it has occupied the chancellor’s office for 52 of the 72 years of the republic’s existence. It has never polled lower than the 31% it won in the first post-war vote. But it is now facing the real prospect of being booted out of power. A new poll by Forsa put the at 25%, the at just 19% and the Greens at 17%. In 2013 the got 41.5% and at the most recent election, in 2017, they got 32.9%.