On September 24, Germany holds a nationwide election. If the polls and experts are accurate, it should be a humdrum affair. Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union (CDU) will receive the majority of the votes, sending her to a fourth term without breaking much of a sweat.
However, all elections, even predictable ones, have consequences – some of them long-reaching. Far-right and Kremlin-supported Alternative for Deutschland (AfD) looks certain to enter the Bundestag for the first time; the last polls[1] have them at double the 5 percent threshold. There is also the outstanding question of whether Merkel or other prominent German …read more