(202) 748-8000, democrats. (202) 748-8002, independent. today in germany elections take place. talking about the importance not just for that country buffer geopolitics, kate brady of the washington post. good morning. >> good morning morning, or afternoon as it is here. host: we talked about these elections, for to them as snap elections, can you expand that means today? guest: it is a snap with a bit

of a delay. the chancellor, he's centerleft government collapsed back in november, and this election that is taking place today has 59 million people eligible to vote. they are all heading to the polls across the country in this early election that should actually have been taking ice in september, and is ultimately a budget issue, a spending issue for this year, 2025, that brought down then government. so the polling stations have been open for several hours now, since 8:00 a.m. this morning, local time, and we are expecting the early prognosis to already trickling around 6:00 p.m. this evening. of course as you mentioned, huge global geopolitical issues have been raised in the selection as well. this election really does come at an extremely pivotal time and for germany, for europe as well as what germany's future role might be in this shifting world

order that we are seeing right now. but of course domestic issues have also played a huge part and certainly they've been the most prominent topic of discussion during election campaigns, starting off with economic issues. germany's economy is still stagnating, hasn't really recovered ssent the pandemic, but it is migration that really has become the topic and call for a clamp down on and migration policy during this election campaign. host: you briefly mentioned it, but who are the key contenders towatch guest: so you have four main candidates but it is worth pointing out maybe that voters today won't be voting for a chancellor, for a party. it's a parliamentary system and it will be the new parliament that later appoints that chancellor. but of course each of the named parties, strongest parties to have a chancellor candidate and

at the moment it looks like the next chancellor might well be the leader of the conservative christian democratic union party , and they've been ahead in the polls for quite some months now drifting between 28 and 30%. but of course with germany's system, it is usual to form a coalition, so the question will be who with? but we are also watching out for today is what is probably going to be a historic result in a far-right alternative for germany party. they spend pulling for about a year and a half now if not longer in second position, but because of what we call the firewall here against the far in germany, all of the parties have ruled out forming a coalition with the afd, which currently leaves a couple of other viable options if those opinion polls that we've been seeing in recent weeks are true. so that would be neither a coalition with the social

democrats as the party of the current chancellor, although he said that he wouldn't want to be taking on a ministerial position himself, or we could see the conservatives teaming up with the greens as well, because it all ultimately comes down to the numbers. and what we are seeing right now is although the afd don't like likely to have an election win right now, their strength in numbers is already starting and potentially, depending on tonight's results, it could have an impact on coalition building and we are seeing this increasingly fragmented little -- political spectrum here in germany which is making the coalition building certainly more difficult. host: you described afd as far-right, what makes them so? guest: afd began its life as a euro skeptic policy that really jumped on the issue of migration and backlash against germany's open border policy and migration crisis of 2015.

they really gone on to taboo after taboo. there are now under surveillance nationwide. the party at national level is classified as a suspected extremist case, and parts of the party are also designated by domestic intelligence as being an extremist group. and that comes down to they have been accused of kind of harboring nativist, anti-migrant and far-right tendencies and also sharing those views that we here as well from far-right extremist groups. there are some extremely polemic figures within the party. one of the arguments is perhaps being out today speaking to some voters myself, they said we are not all extremists, there are some people among the party, and that is something you hear quite a lot from that party base.

but there have been concerns of those borders between the far-right afd and known extremist groups overlapping. one of the most high-profile politicians in the party, he himself is classified as an extremist and has twice been convicted and fined for using a banned nazi slogan. host: also talked about when it comes to the afd, the supported has received not only from elon musk, but vice president jd vance. guest: we saw this originally back in december, elon musk sending out a post on x saying that the afd was what he said was german, it was the only place for germany, and he has reiterated that several times, pulling a live x speech with the co-party leader of the afd and also the chancellor candidate, and he appeared livehe appearedn

afd rally and even within the past few hours has been posting some more support for them. we heard from the vice president jd vance at the munich security conference leading the political establishment here and the established parties in germany and said there is no firewall and encouraged political parties hereto work with the far-right afd which is an absolute taboo in germany and that is all part of of course germany's history and part of its processing and atonement for the atrocities of the holocaust and the crimes committed by the nazi dictatorship. host: what is turnout expected to be like for today? guest: it is usually quite high, we can expect in the 70% range. but what's interesting is a lot of voters have said i think it was about 20% even up until the final days of the election

campaign said they were still undecided. it seems there's been a boost of voters among the youth as well. being a particular difficult group to motivate. the question is who will they vote for. we've also seen a surge in the polls for the far left party. a lot of people want to vote for them and get them in -- get them to stay in parliament, there's a threshold of the crossover to get into german parliament which is 5% of the votes. and there's a hope a lot of their voters that they will then be able to ensure there is a voice in the german parliament that is more left than the current centerleft parties hurried it's also interesting as well that the afd, the far-right afd has a strong youth base especially on tiktok that's really managed to and gain a lot of younger voices through social

media before a lot of the other older parties and the more centrist parties manage to really get to grips with social media. host: you can find her work at washington post.com. you can follow her on x.