Merkel's candidate candidates face off in 1st election debate: German election
Merkel's candidate candidates face off in 1st election debate: German election
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The three candidates to succeed Chancellor Angela Merkel in Germany's election sought to gain an advantage in the closely fought race in a televised debate Sunday, with recent polls suggesting that many voters are unimpressed with the choice they face. The contenders in the Sept. 26 parliamentary election are Armin Laschet for Merkel's center-right Union bloc, Olaf Scholz for the center-left Social Democrats and Annalena Baerbock for the environmentalist Greens. Armin Laschet, the conservatives' candidate to succeed Chancellor Angela Merkel, went on the offensive in the first major prime-time TV debate Sunday in a battle to save his ailing campaign less than a month before elections.

The 60-year-old leader of Merkel's CDU-CSU alliance had gone into the election race with a comfortable lead over his rivals from the Social Democratic Party (SPD) and the Greens. But several missteps in recent weeks have left his popularity in the doldrums and support for his party slipping just as Merkel is due to bow out of politics after 16 years as German leader. Instead, Finance Minister Olaf Scholz, who was largely written off by many at the beginning of the campaign, given lacklustre support for his SPD, has sprung forward in the race.

The 63-year-old has also overtaken the leader of the Greens, Annalena Baerbock, as she stumbled too from a series of scandals including plagiarism claims. A poll published by Bild am Sonntag newspaper just hours before Sunday's TV battle showed support for Scholz's SPD climbing to 24 percent. The CDU-CSU alliance meanwhile sank to its all-time worst score at 21 percent. The Greens were at steady 17 percent. Laschet acknowledged the poor showing in the polls but sought to sell his party to Germans as the face of stability.

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