Which of them could tip the balance in the German Parliament . Our question this week is germanys election, is it merkels to lose . Im joined by three seasoned observers of berlin politics, beginning with Petra Pinzler zeit. E weekly she says Angela Merkel will be the next challenger, so the question is which small pararty leader will win the seat next to merkel . Also with us, derek scally who writes for the irish times. Derek argues that merkel is facing serious unresolved challenges. He adds germany is sleepwalking through its next economic crisis. And a warm welcome to christine meier. She says no strategy against the. Ar right afd party the challenge, however, might be an opportunity. Interesting. I would like to begin with you, Petra Pinzler, and go to the international stage. Theres talk of a nuclear war on the korean peninsula. Trump, aired elan, and putin are kicking up trouble left, right, and center. Germany is still mired in the refugee crisis. So much at stake, and german voters are mired in apathy. They are saying, i cant generate any enthusiasm for this election. What is going on . Petra what merkel did during the last couple years is pretetd that vototers dont have to care for politics. She just will deal with it. When you look at history, the last 12 years, it was all right. Went quite well. If you look at the german situation, germany is doing quite fine. She knows best. Derek . The irish times correspondent, what do you make of the Election Campaign . Derek resignation, i think. Everyone is happy shes there. Shes kind of like a security blanket. A lot of people are resigned. If you go around east germany, her greatest fans are saying, we are very grateful shes there. We are blessed to have somebody who is so calm and not a narcissist idiot. Weve had so much coming down the line economically, demographically, the car industry, a quarter of germanys prosperity on the line, and weve got 1. 6 growth, and we got 4 jobless, so everything seems fine. One woman said to me recently, we seem to be resigned to our prosperity. A remarkable thing to say. Times is classically the time when you are supposed to prepare for the bad times. Politicians know they are never going to get rewarded by voters for doing that. Merkel famously never does anything for a long time that will punish her. If not now, when is the time to prepare for germanys car crash future . They are happy she is there. I go to some of her marches or rallies, and three quarters of the square is full, but three years ago, she was packing the house. Peter do you believe this is a deliberate, perhaps even sinister, strategy on the part of the chancellor, to suck the democratic oxygen out of the campaign . Merkel has succeeded on putting a lid on the debate. There is so little controversy, so little debate. Christiane she succeeded at recovering from something she suffered from. The refugee crisis put her way down. She had to come up from that, and she did that strategically. Now of course she cannot have the same numbers, because some people have taken off to the afd and dont want to come back to her party, but she has calmed the situation. That is what she always does. She steers people through every crisis. Peter has she taken the debate out of democracy . Christiane of course not. Peter that is what social democrats have accused her of doing. Christiane that is Election Campaign. The only people that can do that are the citizens. But of course it is so easy when everything is smooth and well. Germany took care of the refugee crisis quite well, so nothing is happening here. There are no crazy explosions of whatever at the moment. People are quiet. I saw this one sign which i really liked, from a guy at one of merkels rallies, and it said , i have to translate. It is like mama. She as a person is what they vote for. Peter petra . Petra at one point, i was wondering about merkels way, if that is democratic, what shes doing. To a certain extent, she suffocates debate. We like debate and discussion because we think this is the way you get better ideas put into place. , itway she suffocates this is also for the people, for voters, it makes politics so boring. To fight merkel is like trying to nail putty to the wall. She has become very president ial more than anything else. People admire her in a way that is very unusual for a politician who has been in office for so long. I think all that together contributes to that. I would dispute you when you said theres apathy. Peter resignation. Derek i think people do care. Ive met a lot of older germans who see the younger generations coming along with temporary work contracts, nowhere to live, so theres a sense that they are eating tomorrows grain today. Maybe we could do with a little less for today. But what politician gets elected promising to fix tomorrows problems . Christiane something is cooking in the kitchen. People are talking and are thinking. It is not a coincidence that half of the people are not really sure who they are going to vote for. There is something going on. Only it is hard to grant. Peter one word that has been used an awful lot, precisely what you are talking about, the german word a sense of discomfort. It is amazing how widely that is being talked about. It is s important t to add thats past week, the only tv debate in which Angela Merkel and the social democrat challenger, Martin Schulz, went headtohead, that is what is was supposed to be, but it wasnt that. Lets have a look at the body langnguage. [foreign language] great stuff. [laughter] peter i dont know what to say. Derek the signal it sends is that germans are into continuity. Peter this was not a headtohead. Christiane no. Traditionally much more a society that likes even if you look at the newspapers, you wont find opeds as you u would in the u. S. , as hard, as tough. To be friendly to each other is something that people like. The social democrats have tried to fight merkel for years. They are a party that like disputes. You could argue they do the infighting and the discussion to find Better Solutions for the country, but they dont earn any points by doing this. Christiane pretty hard to do when you are in the grand coalition and part of a government. Peter germany is governed by a grand what is so grand about the grand coalition . Christiane the numbers. It is almost 80 . The opposition is really small and they have a very good contract in the beginning. They had deals on what they can do. It was hard for the social democrats. They came through with a lot of stuff. Even though they had less voters. Well, everything that ran is attributed to merkel. Merkel hasway that worked with her Coalition Partner was pretty much the same. Afraid eople are petra people are afraid to go into coalition with her. Derek the issue with the grand coalition is, this government really has not done anything that a normal government could not have done. Opposition can complain, but they cant really do a lot. This government has just been treading water. Obviously theyve had crisis after crisis, and i do wonder if the world had not been in crisis, how much of her energy could she have channeled into , or theg germany Pension System isnt going to explode in 20 years time, so to the fair she has had a lot to deal with. These grand coalitions, 12 years, eight of which, you could take germany into the laboratory and retool it, and nobody would be able to stop them, and i dont see this happening. I do wonder. People are so thrilled merkel has never imposed austerity. On the german people. Shes imposed it on the rest of europe. You could say the refugee crisis, but she brought them in and made everyone else deal with it. I dont see what will be that one thing that we say, that is what she did. Derek what is the one thing she should have done . Derek she could have done something on the pensions, something on the tax system, and housing prices. He federal system every problem you see in germany turns into a fight between the states and the federal government. They say, we would like to repair these thousands of falling bridges, but they provide the money. It is like a competence war. Germany cant continue like this. Petra i get the feeling that germany is pretty unhappy, but it is not. Derek i dont think it is an unhappy country. I think journalists are supposed to be canaries in the call mine. Peter unemployment is at a record low. The budget is balanced. No new debt. All the books are largely full. It is serendipity. Derek and half of the people being employed are getting temporary contracts. Germanys infrastructure is falling apart. The schools are covered in mold. Even if they do have the money to sort all this out, they cant because of the federal structure to decentralize power. Great idea after a dictatorship. Peter lets go to some pictures very quickly on what Martin Schulz has got to say about Angela Merkels lack of leadership, as he sees it. You have a choice bebetween a chancellor who refuses to answer questions about the future, whose attitude is, everything is fine, and someone who says what he wants, and the direction in which he wants to lead this country. Derek, more and more people according to Martin Schulz being shut out from prosperity. That is Martin Schulzs core messagage. Why isnt he translating that into votes . Derek because hes trying to replacee centrist chancellor wih centrist chancellor. If you want centrist policies, we have her. Why do we need to replace her . The party feels it cannot go left because the left is occupied. Merkel has got the center. He is squeezed in the middle. Peter so he did a great job application to become her deputy. Derek although he only wants to be chancellor. The issue is what government is she going to get, and at the moment, nobody is sure what is going to come. Peter the lady to my left interviewed Martin Schulz yesterday. What did you learn . Christiane hes fighting. Hes a fighter. But it takes its toll. He started off saying, im going to be the chancellor. He doesnt say that anymore. He doesnt at all unless you force them to. Realistically, there is no chance that he can become chancellor. Lets say highly unlikely. So what he fights for is to get an equitable result. It has to be above what his predecessor got, and even above that before him. When that happens, we will see what they do. Think they are very reluctant. Derek a figure here from the highly respected i institute, ty say that 70 of germans say that is a problem, social justice. Christiane and it is. Peter the message isnt getting through. Christiane it is difficult to grab. The problem is not as big as one could imagine. When you are a young academic and you try to get a job, you are restricted to two years or three years. We now have jobs that are for a limited time. That means it is very difficult for people to plan a life, because they are always in this precarious situation. That goes for many working people as well. That is a problem, but not a problem that makes you immediately feel like you should act. Why that doesnt translate is difficult to understand. Peter we talked about chancellor merkel. We talked about the social democrats. It looks as though the next bundestag is going to have six parties, four of them the socalled smaller parties. Tell us why that is so important. Petra i would consider the merkel government like an empty basket. The coalition can throw things in. The last eight years, the social democrats put in their ideas. Like the minimum wage. Petra exactly. Before that, it was the liberals that pushed the government in a certain direction. The next term, we will either , or a blackgreen coalition we will have a conservative and liberal government, which is alsoso a possibility, which i think is very unlikely. So again, the social democrats and the conservatives as we have , which i think is very unlikely , because the social democrats did it twice and they were diminished, so why should they do it a third time . Much more possible is a coalition between the liberals and conservatives or the greens and conservatives, or between the liberals, conservatives, and greens. Will be very interesting to watch. Peter thanks very much. Lets go to some statements from each of the parties to get an idea how important the third spot is in this election. The thihird place will decide the political direction. It decides what direction our country will take in the next four years. Only a wakeup call from a clearly strengthened left party could possibly prevent the spd from creeping back into a grand coalition after defeat at the polls. We want to get into the bundestag. Then we will see if we can have a a positive impact t in the government. Our g goal is to moveve intoe german bundeststag as the third most powerful force. We are sticking to that. Four smaller parties, all somewhere around 10 . The greens, the left, the far right afd, which is most likely to grab the third spot. Christiane difficult to say. If the liberal democrats are pretty far you know, the numbers are small. Many people dont tell the truth about who they are really going to vote for. I think it is pretty open, and pretty depressing that the far right is so far. Peter i was going to ask you, that is the reason i asked about which of these parties is going to come in third. In your quote that i gave the audience, there was a note of despair in what you said. You said parties and journalists struggle over town to fight the racist newcomer. This is quite strong language. Is it the job of journalists to fight the afd . Christiane it is not the job of journalists to fight the afd, think it is being disputed, how you deal with it. The afd is not a normal party. Parts of the party are really way to the right, so far that for germans, it is hard to even look at them. It is difficult to deal with them because you want to be fair and talk to them and you have to be able to blend all your emotion and deal with them. I also think theres a chance. The chance is that all the other parties and the voters have to really rethink their values. What are we actually standing for. Where is enlightenment in our society . Are we really sleepwalking or are we actually pretty tough in what we believe. That is a very interesting process. You can see how people rethink their Party Affiliations and how they look into party programs, which hasnt been the case in the last election. Derek i would agree with you. These parties arise because of a need among voters. You could say they are feeding peoples worst stereotypes, but there is a part of the afd which is appealing to a deep conservative need that is not being met by the other parties. Towardsw, the attitude the afd has been emotional outrage. If we just bombard them with outrage, they will somehow go away which of course just feeds them. They have views that in the helmet era was normal politics, so why cant we deal with them . One of the leaders of the left party put it well. She was playing on the french political movement. We are inleading a a trance. We need to say, what do i noteve in, andnd why is it the afd . In ireland, people like to read articles they dont agree with, because it forces you to say, why . Theres been a lot of consensus and a lot of complacency with merkel stirring the pot. Perhaps this is the kick on the backside that german democracy needed, while condemning the racism on the fringe of the afd for what it is. Peter petra . Petra im not quite sure. I would prefer not to have them in the parliament because of the racism. I dont want to have to listen ,o that in germany ever again which is not the conservative part of the afd, but the really right wing part. Im afraid they might switch the mood into something, not just uncomfortable, but really disgusting. They will be there, that is for sure. If it goes well, they will have to prove they can work as a party, and maybe they will show they will not be able to. Derek how do you deal with them if you disapproval hasnt worked. What is the strategy . Other look at france or european countries. I wouldnt say everything is great here, but we are still better off in terms of fighting this really right wing tension. Christiane i think as germans we have to take a deep breath. We dont really want to listen to that, but we have to. We listen to what they have to say and then we take it apart. That is the only way to deal with it. Journalists dont let their emotions come into interviews, right, but that doesnt mean you are not a person, a citizen, and a german. It is hard to deal with people who use the language of goebbe ls, and that happens over and over. That is why the emotions are so high. Peter suppose the question is, at what point will the afd stop pushing your buttons . Theyve been pushing buttons and theyve gotten to 10 with outrageous stuff. I would love to hear more from all three of you. Come back next week. I let it run because it was so interesting. Do we agree this election is Angela Merkels to lose . That was the question. Probably. Derek this is her last time at the rodeo. Peter and on that note, thanks for joining us. Come by next week. Anchor this week on globobal 303000, we track k down a mystl creature whose habitat is under threat. In the philippines, we meet a chef transforming leftover food into tasty new dishes. But first, were off to kenya to find out more about daytoday life in the slums. Today, over half of the worlds population live in cities. Thats almost 4 billion people. The u. N. Estimates that ther