Merz leads German election race in shadow of far right

BERLIN

When Germans go to vote in one week's time, after a polarising election campaign overshadowed by a far-right surge, they are expected to hand the chancellery to conservative Friedrich Merz.

If the polls are right, it will fall to the Christian Democrat to deal with a storm of challenges roiling Germany, economic stagnation, a society divided over immigration and a hostile Team Trump.

An election win on Feb. 23 would only be the first step towards a new government.

Merz would then need to find one or more coalition partners in a process that, even in less turbulent and toxic times, takes weeks if not months.

Merz's opposition CDU/CSU block has long polled at around 30 percent, almost double the support for either the Social Democrats (SPD) of Chancellor Olaf Scholz or his coalition allies the Greens.

If Merz triumphs, the former investment lawyer has vowed a strong shift to the right that would end two decades of centrist governance under Scholz and his predecessor Angela Merkel.

Merz argues that only by answering public fears over irregular immigration can centrist parties halt the rise of right-wing extremists that has upended politics in many Western democracies.

Germany long thought itself immune to a mainstream far right, but the Alternative for Germany (AfD) is now polling in second place at a record 20 percent.

All other parties have vowed to shun the anti-immigration party and keep it behind a "firewall" on non-cooperation, a stance the AfD labels an "anti-democratic cartel agreement".

That outsider status has only emboldened the AfD, which celebrated Trump's reelection and basked in the support tech billionaire Elon Musk, who has declared that "only the AfD can save Germany".