Germany accused of weakening Ukraine

According to a Reuters report, the north German state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, where former Chancellor Angela Merkel was born, ties to Russia run deep – so deep, in fact, its leaders have defended a Kremlin project that the United States says helped cripple Ukraine.

At issue is a new gas pipeline project, which Germany halted on Tuesday in retaliation for Russia's decision to recognize two breakaway regions in eastern Ukraine, shortly before it invaded and brought Europe to the brink of a major war.

Mecklenburg-Vorpommern is the landfall site for the line, Nord Stream 2, which bypasses the former Soviet Republic. The United States long argued the line would weaken Ukraine; Germany and Russia insisted the project was purely commercial. Nonetheless, in 2019 Washington set sanctions on some companies and individuals who were helping to build it, maintaining the line is a tool for Russia to support aggression against Ukraine.

Last January, the regional premier, Manuela Schwesig, took action to support the Russian project. At her initiative, the state parliament voted to set up a special foundation whose charter said it could acquire, manage, own, provide or let land, tools and machines to help the completion of the pipeline.

"We believe that it is right to build the pipeline," Schwesig told reporters in January 2021. Advocating for the pipeline in the state parliament last January, Schwesig said the US sanctions were self-interested. "Nobody who is working on building the pipeline is doing anything wrong," she said. "The ones doing something wrong are those who are trying to stop the pipeline."

Nord Stream 2 would double the amount of gas Russia can pump directly to Germany, its biggest customer for gas, make Germany and Europe less vulnerable to supply interruptions caused by disputes between Russia and Ukraine, and bring economic benefits to Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, a relatively deprived region that used to be in the German Democratic Republic.

But this year as Russia stepped up pressure on Ukraine, questions mounted around the Foundation, called Klima-und Umweltschutz MV (Climate and Environment Protection Foundation). It would not reveal who was running its sanctions-busting operation beyond saying that the person was appointed by Nord Stream 2 AG, a company owned by Gazprom PAO, which is fully controlled by the Russian state.

The state auditor, the Court of Auditors, told Reuters on February 09, 2022 it was concerned that Mecklenburg-Vorpommern had largely given up control over the Foundation's assets. This meant there was no guarantee that the Foundation would always work in the public interest, said Sebastian Jahn, the court's spokesman, in a telephone interview.

The Foundation said on Wednesday it would stop helping the pipeline project, but declined to say exactly what it had done to aid it so far. In an account of its first year on its website, it said that to complete the pipeline, "the illegal threats of United States had to be countered with a wide range of measures, which for obvious reasons cannot be made the subject of public explanation."

Public records show it purchased a ship which entered the Baltic last July and which a US State Department report to Congress last November said had engaged in pipe-laying activities, on Nord Stream 2 or another sanctioned project.

"We did what is necessary, the pipeline is practically completed," Foundation Chairman Erwin Sellering told German broadcaster NDR on Wednesday, adding that this involved helping small and medium-sized companies do their work. "We can say we fulfilled our mandate," he added.

As Russia continues to pressure Ukraine, other questions are mounting about the links between the pipeline, Germany's ruling Social Democrat Party (SPD), and Moscow. The regional premier Schwesig is, like Chancellor Olaf Scholz, a member of the SPD, which traditionally advocates rapprochement with Russia.

Gerhard Schroeder, a former Chancellor who has described himself as Putin's personal friend. One of his last acts in office in 2005 was to sign the deal creating the Nord Stream 2 project. Soon after, he became chairman of the company behind it – the first of several directorial positions he has taken at Russian energy companies.

In 2019, Scholz rejected the US sanctions as interference in Germany's affairs. On Tuesday, after Russia formally recognized the two breakaway regions, he decided to halt certification of the pipeline. But some analysts say the damage to Germany is already done.

"Russia has succeeded in using the personal interests of prominent German political figures against Germany," said Marcel Dirsus, Non-Resident Fellow at the Institute for Security Policy at Kiel University.

"All this is doubly dangerous for Germany: It allows an adversarial foreign power to influence decision-making and it raises questions about Germany's reliability among the country's allies."

Germany gets ready for most unpredictable elections

For the first time in well over a decade, German voters will enter polling booths for federal elections on Sunday with no clear idea which party will win, who will be the next chancellor, or what governing coalition will be formed.

Only a razor’s edge separates the centre-left Social Democratic Party (SPD) from the conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and its Bavarian sister party, the Christian Social Union (CSU), according to the latest poll by the Allensbach Institute, which puts the archrivals at 26 percent and 25 percent, respectively.

Other polls released in recent days put the SPD’s lead at two to four points, with a margin of error of about 3 percent.

Experts have urged caution when interpreting polling data due to the uncertain influence of a historically high number of undecided voters, as well as an expected surge in postal voting.

Exit polls will be released when voting ends at 6pm local time (16:00 GMT) on Sunday, and results will emerge throughout the night.

Angela Merkel’s decision to depart as chancellor after 16 years has upended German politics and led to the most unpredictable race in years. At various points in the campaign, the SPD, CDU/CSU and the Greens have each been leading the polls.

Climate change has dominated party programs and televised debates more than any other issue. On Friday, more than 100,000 protesters joined outside the German parliament building in Berlin, where activist Greta Thunberg told crowds that “no political party is doing even close to enough” to avoid climate disaster.

Other points of debate included social welfare spending and raising the minimum wage, overhauling Germany’s rickety digital infrastructure, and the country’s role in the NATO alliance.

Success and failure in the campaign have largely been determined by party leaders’ ability to frame themselves as a natural heir to Merkel, who remains Germany’s most popular politician.

Gaffes by CDU leader Armin Laschet saw his approval rates tank, while allegations of CV-padding and plagiarism knocked Green candidate Annalena Baerbock’s race off course.

Finance Minister and SPD candidate Olaf Scholz has played up his reputation as a boring, pragmatic centrist to great effect.

A recent poll found that 47 percent of voters favoured him for chancellor, compared with 20 percent for Laschet and 16 percent for Baerbock.

“The issue of succession became perhaps the most important campaign issue,” Kai Arzheimer, a professor of politics at the University of Mainz, told Al Jazeera.

“Voters are more worried or more interested in who would be most competent, and who would be best able to manage Germany and Germany’s future. So personalities have become a major focus in this campaign.”

A total of 60.4 million voters aged above 18 are eligible to cast a ballot on Sunday. Voting booths will open at 8am (06:00 GMT) on Sunday and close at 6pm (16:00 GMT).

Under Germany’s electoral system, voters cast two ballots for the Bundestag, the federal parliament, which has a base number of 598 seats.

The first is for a candidate to represent one of Germany’s 299 districts, which is determined in a United Kingdom-style first-past-the-post system.

The second is for a party. These votes are distributed according to proportional representation to each party that passes a 5 percent threshold, who chose 299 more candidates from internal lists to represent them.

A number of “overhang” seats are created if there is an imbalance between a party’s directly elected seats and its share of voters, a feature that has caused the Bundestag to balloon in size.

In 2017, the total number of seats rose to 709, and the number is expected to rise again this year.

The states of Berlin and Mecklenburg-Vorpommern will also hold simultaneous state elections. Berliners will receive a further ballot for a referendum to expropriate the capital’s largest landlords and take nearly a quarter-million homes into state ownership.

Germany’s federal returning officer told local media that the number of votes submitted by post would be at least 40 percent, potentially even doubling the 28.6 percent in 2017.

The COVID-19 pandemic is not expected to reduce turnout, he added, noting that regional elections earlier this year did not see any significant decline.

In the coming weeks and months, German parties will negotiate with each other to form a coalition capable of governing with a majority in the new Bundestag.

There is little appetite to renew Merkel’s favoured “grand coalition” of SPD and CDU/CSU, so polling suggests three parties will be required.

There are no formal rules that govern coalition talks, which will last until MPs vote in a new government and elect a new chancellor.

The CDU and the SPD have indicated that they will seek to lead a coalition even if they do not come out in the first place.

The most likely options, taking their names from the party colours, are a so-called “traffic light” combination of SPD, Green and Free Democratic Party (FDP); or a “Jamaica” coalition of CDU/CSU, Green and FDP.

The pro-business FDP wants tight fiscal control over finances, which complicates a marriage with the SPD and the Greens, who have staked their campaigns on increasing spending for social welfare and climate protection.

“This might be a very big issue, whether we will have more taxes or higher taxes, or not,” said Ursula Munch, director of the Academy for Political Education in Tutzing.

“The Free Democrats, they promised their voters to have a tax reduction.”

A left-wing coalition of SPD, the Green and the Left Party may be mathematically possible if the latter clears the 5 percent hurdle to enter parliament. The Left’s program has more in common than the FDP, but its opposition to NATO is a major barrier to the larger parties.

“It will take quite a long time,” said Munch. “It’s impossible to form a coalition before November and we’ll be happy if we have one in February.”

If Merkel does stay on as interim chancellor until December 17, she will make history by overtaking her mentor, former CDU leader Helmut Kohl, as Germany’s longest-serving post-war leader.