Just over two weeks before the Bundestag elections, representatives from six major political parties clashed in a heated debate on ZDF’s “Exchange of Blows” on Thursday evening, covering the key issues of migration, energy supply, and the economy.
The 90-minute debate offered a platform for Tino Chrupalla (AfD) Felix Banaszak (Greens), Jan van Aken (The Left), Alexander Dobrindt (CSU), Christian Lindner (FDP), and Sahra Wagenknecht (BSW) to outline why voters should back their respective parties in the federal elections on Feb. 23.
The top Social Democrat (SPD) and Christian Democratic Union (CDU) candidates for chancellor — incumbent Olaf Scholz and CDU chairman Friedrich Merz — will face off in a head-to-head debate on Feb. 19. Broadcasters shunned Alternative for Germany (AfD) co-leader Alice Weidel despite her party currently polling higher than Scholz’s SPD.
On migration, AfD’s Tino Chrupalla, alongside CSU’s Alexander Dobrindt, voiced concerns over municipalities being overwhelmed by immigration. However, Left Party chair Jan van Aken argued that Germany could manage even a million refugees annually, citing the country’s capacity during the Ukrainian refugee crisis. “The municipalities are only overloaded because they were underfunded,” van Aken added, sparking outrage from Sahra Wagenknecht, founder of the new BSW party.
“The overwhelming can only be denied by those who only live in privileged quarters,” said Wagenknecht, who argued that refugee inflows strained local resources and increased violent crime. She then asked van Aken: “When were you last in a poor district?”
Hours before the debate, General Manager of the German Association of Cities and Municipalities (DStGB) André Berghegger had warned how public services and city finances had been stretched to unsustainable levels to accommodate a record number of asylum seekers.
“It is important for the municipalities that the number of asylum seekers decreases significantly. We urgently need a breath,” he told the Editorial Network Germany (RND).
She argued that refugee inflows strained local resources and increased violent crime.
“So much refusal to reality is rare,” remarked Dobrindt in response to The Left’s defense of Germany’s liberal asylum and immigration policies.
Chrupalla also took aim, claiming that refugees emigrated “into the social hammock” and that nearly half were still in receipt of citizens’ benefit — a claim upheld by ZDF’s fact-check shortly after the debate.
He told the public that the quality of immigration to Germany was poor and skilled workers were disincentivized from coming. “Do you know why you don’t come? Because the taxes and tax burden are too high in this country,” he said.
Economic issues dominated the latter half of the debate. Both BSW and AfD agreed on the need to restore cheap Russian gas supplies to combat the energy crisis. Wagenknecht condemned sanctions against Russia, claiming they hurt Germany more than Moscow, while Chrupalla promised a return to economic dominance through coal, nuclear energy, and Russian gas. Their positions drew sharp criticism from Dobrindt, who accused them of aligning with Putin’s interests over the EU’s. The politicians insisted they were putting the German people first.
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In a powerful speech in the German Bundestag, @AfD politician Carolin Bachmann slams the ruling government for allowing 2 million migrants into the country while families… pic.twitter.com/DMEqiV316S
— Remix News & Views (@RMXnews) February 15, 2024FDP’s Lindner pushed for economic reforms focused on reducing bureaucracy and halting social redistribution. The Left and BSW proposed tackling housing shortages through the expropriation of large landlords and implementing rent controls, ideas Lindner dismissed as outdated and counterproductive.
As the debate concluded, candidates shared their first-day government priorities: Lindner vowed to spark an economic turnaround, Wagenknecht promised a foreign policy shift to avoid entanglement in global conflicts, while van Aken called for rent controls and the elimination of VAT on food to ease living costs. Dobrindt and Chrupalla deviated from the single-point request, promising to tackle both economic and migration challenges.
The latest polling shows the CDU/CSU alliance becoming the largest party in the Bundestag after the election but probably failing to amass a parliamentary majority, thus relying on coalition talks to govern effectively.
The Alternative for Germany (AfD) is predicted to make great electoral gains and hoover up 21 percent of the vote, although other recent polls have them as high as 25 percent.
The governing SPD and the FDP, who recently left the government and sparked the snap election, are expected to be the biggest losers with voters predicted to punish the major parties most recently in power.
The FDP could even lose its Bundestag representation altogether should it fail to reach the electoral threshold of 5 percent needed to win any seats, or win the required number of individual constituencies.
