German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and his conservative rival Friedrich Merz will face each other in a TV debate tonight, exactly two weeks before the snap parliamentary elections in Germany, DPA reported, quoted by BTA.
The ninety-minute duel begins at 8:15 p.m. (7:15 p.m. GMT) on the two public television channels ARD and ZDF.
Merz is the favorite to be Germany's next chancellor. His conservative bloc, the Christian Democratic Union/Christian Social Union (CDU/CSU), is leading in opinion polls with around 30% support ahead of the vote on February 23.
The German Social Democratic Party (SPD) of Scholz, who has governed the Federal Republic since 2021, has collapsed to an electoral share of between 15 and 18%. The SPD is thus lagging behind the far-right "Alternative for Germany" (AfD), which has emerged as the second largest political force in Germany (21%).
The debates will also take place a little more than a week after Merz provoked a storm of reactions with his decision to push his initiative through the lower house of parliament, the Bundestag, with the votes of the AfD.
The move by the conservative leader led to protests across Germany; in Munich alone, around 200,000 people took to the streets of the city yesterday. Despite all this, these events have not caused any shifts in the electoral attitudes measured by sociologists.
Other key issues expected to be discussed include the revival of the economy, tax policy and the war in Ukraine.
On February 16, there will be another televised debate, only this time with the participation of the other two of the four main contenders for the chancellorship - AfD candidate Alice Weidel and the Greens' Robert Habeck.