Monday, September 25, 2017

Inside Story - The Resurgence of the Right in Germany


She was expected to win, and she did. But Angela Merkel's re-election victory in Germany on Sunday is bittersweet. The Chancellor's Christian Democratic Union won 34 percent of seats in the parliament or Bundestag - that's enough to be the biggest party, but not for a majority government. She'll start talks to build a coalition. At the same time, Merkel's contending with a surge of support for the AfD - the nationalists won the largest far-right representation in parliament since Hitler's Nazis in the 1940s.

For the first time in decades, a right wing party that's opposed her every move has a seat at the political table. Merkel says her party has a clear mandate. How will she govern this time?

Presenter: Elizabeth Puranam | Guests: Dietrich Von Kyaw - Former German Ambassador and Permanent Representative to the EU; Thorsten Benner - Director of Global Public Policy Institute; Bethany Allen-Ebrahimian - Contributing Writer, Foreign Policy