SACHA PFEIFFER, HOST:
Now to Germany, where recent electoral gains for the far right and the far left has left the political center fighting for relevance. Germany has increasing political fragmentation, unstable coalitions, a dire economy - all of which echo a time of rising fascism almost a century ago. So centrist parties are soul-searching and strategy searching. Esme Nicholson reports from Berlin.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: (inaudible).
ESME NICHOLSON, BYLINE: Berlin's markets brim with the rich pickings of harvest. Pensioner Ute Istock quips that the choice of apple varieties is as broad as that of candidates on the ballot sheets in last month's city election. She says that's not necessarily a good thing.
UTE ISTOCK: (Speaking German).
NICHOLSON: "Voting has become tricky," she admits. "It's no longer clear how a party will end up governing effectively because there are too many parties, and forming viable majorities is becoming impossible." Istock says she voted for the far-left Die Linke for the first time ever because she feels the centrist parties are out of touch.
ISTOCK: (Speaking German).
NICHOLSON: "Voters no longer feel represented by the political center," she says, explaining that this is why we're voting in such a confrontational way. Chancellor Friedrich Merz, whose center-right Christian Democrats were trounced in the Berlin elections and suffered their worst ever result in a state election held the same day, appears to have gotten the message.
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FRIEDRICH MERZ: (Speaking German).
NICHOLSON: "Trust in state institutions is declining, and radical parties on both the left and the right are exploiting this," Merz said minutes after the exit polls were announced. Merz's conservatives governed together with the center-left Social Democrats, a coalition of what used to be the two big tent parties with significantly different political positions. Now they rely on each other for increasingly slim majorities. A prominent Social Democrat, Matthias Miersch, recently complained in parliament how reductive political discourse has become. He was speaking after the far-right Alternative for Germany party won a landslide victory in a state election.
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MATTHIAS MIERSCH: (Speaking German).
NICHOLSON: "It's damn difficult to govern in these times," he said, "where things quickly boil down to yes or no, black or white, and the middle ground doesn't count."
Berlin-based communications adviser Maximilian Flugge blames this narrowing of debate and a shrinking political center on the medium conveying the messages.
MAXIMILIAN FLUGGE: (Speaking German).
NICHOLSON: "Algorithms are simply not made for the political center. Algorithms are trained to promote outrage," he explains. "The political center relies on nuance and compromise, neither of which goes viral on social media." Despite his party's recent electoral defeats, Merz remains defiant amid speculation that he might be replaced. He insists he'll push on with the tax and welfare reforms he says are needed to jump-start Germany's economy. He admits, though, that citing statistics alone won't sell it.
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MERZ: (Speaking German).
NICHOLSON: "We must try - I, myself, included - to reach people on an emotional level."
Flugge says Merz's centrist government is too negative in its messaging about its reform agenda, in stark contrast to the far-right AfD, which is promising voters that, quote, "everything is possible." But part of that vision includes so-called remigration, a policy that advocates deporting people on a massive scale, including immigrants with German citizenship. And while Merz may struggle to explain his party's vision, he doesn't hold back when describing the far-right's policies.
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MERZ: (Speaking German).
NICHOLSON: "The word remigration is nothing more than a synonym for ethnic cleansing based on origin and skin color," Merz recently told lawmakers. His assertion prompted applause but also jeers from the sizable AfD opposition. Their leader, Alice Weidel, claims it's the AfD that is Germany's new big tent party.
For NPR News, I'm Esme Nicholson in Berlin. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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