tv DW News - News Deutsche Welle September 25, 2017 11:00am-11:31am CEST
11:00 am
in the final days of the last government of communist east germany did you ever imagine yourself becoming a minister here no absolutely not. yet this was only the beginning the political newcomer from the formerly communist east learned fast. it was she who sealed the fate of her political patron home after a party funding scandal. defying the male dominated dynamics of her own c.d.u. party she became its new leader and won her first term as chancellor in two thousand and five. angela merkel has a reputation of thinking things through to the end before she makes up her mind only her mind can change. when the fukushima disaster struck in japan she didn't hesitate to pull the plug on german nuclear power within weeks several reactors were taken offline. this changes things also in
11:01 am
germany. merkel forced through austerity measures in the midst of the financial crisis soon she became a hate figure in greece and across much of southern europe. but it was her welcoming response to the migration crisis in two thousand and fifteen that became the defining moment of her political career machall decided to go it alone without consulting her european partners. we can do it she won international praise for her humanitarian response now she's often called the leader of the free won't but her refugee policy has given rise to fall right populist small groups of protesters from the far right alternative for germany cloaked machall campaign the if tea party is making a bid to go mainstream. so dealing with xenophobic populism at home in germany
11:02 am
may prove to be next big challenge. of get more now on those challenges we are rejoined in the studio by heigho funk an expert at germany's for university a professor there and also from from again as friedrich schiller university gentlemen welcome to both of you we just saw a piece there about angela merkel about her her governing and also her career history just generally speaking in the wake of these election results where do you think that we are on that trajectory now at this point is this now the point at which she starts to descend. no sure america. and she will do it she's pregnant i think efficient and the other party members who will be in this possibly in this correlation know what they have to do there pragmatic petitions and they know that they are responsible for having that kind of government so she would do
11:03 am
it again she did it already she's very tough. that's certainly something that is definitely not up for debate she is certainly very tough but you know the coalition that she is trying to get together we just want to remind our viewers it's a coalition of unlikely bedfellows and she really only has one option so what do you think it's going to be a very thorny road to a new government that's for sure and i wouldn't expect it to come soon. as my colleague has rightly said so i mean merkel is really resilient and she has proved to comeback i mean remember she she was basically if we can bundle already last year the end of it she has proved to come back and so i mean she has she's very experienced and most likely she will manage just to bring it to a new coalition but this coalition is has to bridge ideological positions which are difficult to bridge that say and i would say that they are all black males because
11:04 am
there's only one option left so that brings them together they must come together but i will make spec this coalition to be really stable and i doubt whether it really will take four years of stability or if we see more or less soon reelection i'm ok and i'm just ideology by the very with that perspective i. will there better being politicians the greens and the freedom of press. tell us a little bit more about that. both of them are eager to. especially the greens to be part of a coalition. their ideological gaps as it was said but they needed to be compromised and all of these parties to this compromise because they know otherwise they're they're losing even more especially this you do see as you.
11:05 am
it would be political suicide if they don't do compromises c.s.u. and greens and few democrats so they are going to do with their press truck so they are the one side is the blackmailing and the other side they have come together that were ok well gentlemen we thank you very much for your assessment on on on the potential options here for governing but you know we're going to turn now to one of the parties that is set to continue its part of being in the opposition there in the german bundestag the left party they are giving their press conference in the wake of these results and just to remind you they took nine point two percent and they pullin arre official results and that. does include us into the first and she and i know we'll see also that we're seeing a similar phenomenon in germany than we that we've seen in many others in the country and you have a policy that erodes social achievements that cause the social uncertainty that deregulates the labor market pensions then it's not surprising that there are
11:06 am
plenty of people who feel left by the wayside by policy of this kind who feel that their interests simply do not play a role anymore and some of these people are of course. tempted by right wing populist. parties in some cases right wing radical parties as well and that's what we're experiencing here in germany just as we've seen in other countries so we have to say that the mothers and fathers of the a.f.c. . the cartoonists who. have contributed to it increasing social justice you have created jobs worse paid jobs. parties have done nothing to ensure that when it starts exploding that families can no longer afford their rents and this deplorable state of affairs has been the breeding ground for party like the a.f.c. . but of course if you want to dry out this breeding ground there has to be
11:07 am
a social welfare policy in place in this country we must make improvement here otherwise there's not much opportunity to really change things we've seen that the s.p.d. doesn't want to enter into a grand coalition. we never know whether they're going to stick to that or not let's hope so but that's not enough obviously it would be nice if we could have a social democratic party that does truly research democratic policy because then we might have the opportunity to enter into other majorities because ms merkel didn't win this election because. she got such an impressive response she won the election because there was no real alternative there was no clear competition and martin short of the s.p.d. was not that the poor result of the c.d.u. means that there could have been a very different result but now we have to accept the situation it is as it is we
11:08 am
will remain in the opposition and our positions will be clear in honest talk about . thank you. mr bash. gentleman you can rest assured that we will stay in the press conference naturally we are split in terms of our mixed feelings five hundred thousand votes more is a serious increase we're very pleased about that we're going to have five new and. we're going to have sixty nine. which is a good result thirty seven women thirty two men from which is good five direct candidates another positive development so this is a result that we. would be happy with if there was nothing else going on but it's obviously striking that the country has shifted to the right and this isn't
11:09 am
just the result of the f d a f d rather. but it's also the case that the majority that we have seen was not possibly you know there was same sex marriage was one thing that came out of the grand coalition but there wasn't enough social democratic policy which is a real shame we believe that new constellations are now on the cards it will be very interesting to see what government has formed last. cd you can see as you said quite striking and i believe this is due to the election campaign that. waged. it was a bit complacent i think. we will definitely be the social opposition and we will be following on from the issues that we pushed for in
11:10 am
previous years but we'll also be talking about the major challenges facing as in this century and come up with concepts that might be an alternative to this coalition and that we may be expecting a separate jamaica. and green party we'll have to see how big our parliamentary base at the end of the day but that's not really the issue here i think it's quite remarkable the things that were said. the election you remember that the left party led the opposition in the last six. government. but despite all the criticism. you have been watching a press conference there of the left party here in germany which in the wake of this german election looks set to be part of the opposition in the next government and the next legislature rather we are joined now in the studio by hans brandt and by political scientists all over from schiller university gentlemen thank you so
11:11 am
much for being here and i'll turn to you first because we know that merkel she needs to find coalition partners we've been talking about her various options but it seems pretty clear that she's going to face a pretty vocal opposition isn't she. absolutely she will face opposition obviously from the rightwing f.d.a. which is new and parliament will have to set its smocks at its set itself up in parliament and will probably initially be particularly vocal but of course there is also opposition from the far left as we've just seen there have been in parliament for a long time they were the largest opposition party. as it were fighting or opposing this grand coalition that has ruled so far and so they're being pushed into a bit of a you join you in a row now and he was just saying so and so they were also trying to increase their profile again in opposition so they will be very vocal opposition both from the left and from the right all over what do you make of that i mean what does that mean for the dynamics there in the parliament and how do you think that the left
11:12 am
will position itself specifically it's going to be polarized and we will see much more contestation and we have seen before that is for sure and i think the left is up to to show that she is the important protest party that she can govern and be the real opposition she just lost it's the party has lost its status that's for sure but there will be competition and this role because i think we shouldn't forget that the social democrats oppose to show that they are now the largest opposition party and i think they really own so to say the electorate to show that they are going to be a strong opposition so that's i would expect at least that we see much much more polarized parties clashing with with each other on the big issues it's actually interesting because we know that the left party for example in the s.p.d. that they have they have a history there have a relationship maybe you can tell us a little bit more not only about that but also where their voters exist in germany
11:13 am
what is their demographic where where are they located because we know that it's pretty on even lease right right well left party in fact is similar to the right wing of a very strong in the eastern part of germany in the former communist eastern part of germany and that's part of the reason they left. to some extent is a follower of the former communist party that ruled east germany so there are still traditional supporters of the left in east germany and many of the traditional as well as protests vergers in the east used to vote for their ft the protest vote has now gone to some extent to the f.t. so there has been a significant swing of several hundred thousand words right across the political spectrum from the left to the far right at the same time the left party also has a constituent that is there that emerged from a split from the social democrats in western germany to the fusion of the split from the west plus the traditional left from the east that is what they've probably
11:14 am
constitutes today also two wings that don't always see eye to eye that don't always know how to coordinate their policies. one has to say the left lost five hundred thousand votes to the a of fifty at the same time it didn't lose votes in total it said gained quite a number of votes as well. the party managed actually to get through this election pretty well so on the face of it it seems as if their supporters are quite loyal in fact i want to talk a little bit more about the discourse in the bundestag itself in the german parliament has been talking a lot today about how all of that will play out will they be able to change the discussions all over the left i mean yes yeah. i'm not sure about that because all of these parties have to find a new role and what they're up to but they have to face up to see is in new function that they have to have two wings basically it's
11:15 am
a bipolar polarized. setting with three parties on the left and three parties on the right so to say and parliament of calls has also the function of. of providing the majorities and i think the. eft at some point has to show if there is a strategic option so to say left from the center and at some point it has to clarify together with the social democrats by the way if this option is real or if there are players further on so to say this game of segmenting these two blocks and if they do would become pretty much more difficult than we have seen of politics before oliver i'm so sorry i'm going to interrupt you now that shows we actually are hearing that martin schultz they had of the s.p.d. party has been speaking live let's listen in to what he's saying. from have started and to be more deeply grateful for you don't thank
11:16 am
. us for. this was a great. election campaign and we showed what organizational strength we have in our party and i want to thank. you. very bland. all the road years as well our entire election team i want to thank all of you what you did release a new benchmark. in the elections will come it was not crowned miss victory but you showed how well structured we are as a party the organization was very smooth so i want to thank you billy and. headquarters here. thank you for all of the work everyone has done in the election campaign i'd like to thank you all by name but i'd be here all day if i did that
11:17 am
thank you. what if football players always say as soon as one get matches over you've got to think about the next match and obviously this doesn't apply entirely to us but certainly it's a new season for us here and we're going to start the new season right now. at twenty past ten in the morning here with. nine hundred seventy five brand new members who joined last night.
11:18 am
so that means we're just under twenty four thousand new members in the last year so that shows that we're still a strong force in society. for people who want to ensure that we have the vote of democracy in this country. and i want to say in no uncertain terms that we have made the decision that we are going to be the opposition in this country we will see what government is formed and we were engaged in constructive opposition to this government but one thing is clear. democracy sometimes the opposition is more important you are more decisive than the government for it is the opposition who shows the government what they're doing wrong and it's the opposition who has to show the government what alternatives there to the existing government and for this we need to have good
11:19 am
people a good organization a good party and we've got all of this we've had a good election campaign we are a strong party we've closed forces on a day like today we are proving that we cannot be split. and we will therefore be a strong. party and we will ensure a good future for the se. which always manes a good future for germany. so all of you who fought as hard as you did and maybe all of you have a hard night and i didn't want to have. we would have liked it and easier nights so. it would have been better for us but i personally wish that all of you and i.
41 Views
Uploaded by TV Archive on
![](http://athena.archive.org/0.gif?kind=track_js&track_js_case=control&cache_bust=1113353184)