00:00Dr. Thomas Koenig is Professor of Political Science at the University of
00:04Mannheim in Germany. Thomas, welcome, good to see you. Why are voters moving
00:09towards parties on both the left and the right, rather than towards Germany's
00:14traditional center governing parties? I think in Germany, but not only in
00:21Germany, many voters are concerned about the future of the welfare state, so the
00:27provision of public goods for the majority of the voters and the left and
00:34the right provide very simple solutions. The left thinks that this public good
00:42provision can be done by charging the rich and the right, they say that they can
00:49subtract provisions from migrants. So both have very simple solutions in order to
00:55increase the pie, more or less. The CDU won just 4.9% in Mecklenburg, Western
01:04Pomerania. I think that's its worst result in any German state post-war. How much is
01:10this about personality or policy? How much responsibility really rests with
01:16Germany's Chancellor Mertz and his leadership? Yeah, of course, on the one hand,
01:23Chancellor Mertz has very poor support results, but we observed also recently in
01:31former state elections that the polarization dramatically increases between two
01:38candidates which fight like gladiators about victory. That has been the case already in
01:45Rheinland-Palatine, but also in the state of Baden-Württemberg, where two, let's say, competed in this race, but others
01:54like the
01:54even the SPD or the CDU suffered most. However, it will increase pressure on politics in particular on the governing
02:03coalition.
02:04The AFD winning 38.2% in the same state. That's more than double its 2021 share.
02:13What's driving that extraordinary growth in support, particularly in the east of Germany?
02:21I think in the east of Germany, there are two things which are a little bit different from the west.
02:28On the one hand, it's really countryside. So the public good provision is very, very problematic. So they see that
02:39more or less there is no future and a lot of people are leaving the region. That's one thing.
02:46On the other side, the history is less pronounced. And in the east, they never were taught that any Nazi
02:56tradition they have to be responsible for. So it makes changes or shifts to the right much easier than it
03:05does in the west.
03:06Thomas, I'm sure we'll return to this in coming days and weeks for the moment. Thank you, Dr. Thomas Koenig,
03:11professor of political science at University of Mannheim in Germany.
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