Outgoing German Chancellor Angela Merkel was met with boos and whistles at a campaign event alongside her successor Armin Laschet in her home constituency, just days before Germans go to the polls.
Merkel and Mr Laschet, who is leading the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) campaign, spoke to a crowd in Stralsund in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern on Tuesday, an area that has been the home constituency of Ms Merkel for decades.
The pair were met with boos and whistles from the crowd who gathered at the outdoor event despite the rain in what is likely Merkel’s final official speech in the constituency as she plans to retire after Sunday’s federal election.
According to a report from the newspaper Bild, the boos were blamed on the anti-lockdown Lateral Thinking (Querdenker) movement who have held protests against lockdowns over the course of the Wuhan coronavirus pandemic.
Earlier this year in April, Querdenker protesters were barred from gathering together by several regional courts across Germany.
Ms Merkel took the opportunity to praise Laschet as the CDU’s candidate for German Chancellor and argued that he would succeed her and keep the German economy strong.
Merkel went on to warn of a possible coalition between the Social Democrats (SPD), the Greens and the Marxist Left Party, a red-red-green coalition, which could be a possibility as polls suggest the SPD are likely to win the most seats on Sunday.
An INSA projection released this week suggests that the SPD could win as many as twice the number of constituency seats as the CDU and their Christian Social Union (CSU) allies in Bavaria.
Laschet also addressed the crowd, stating that companies in Germany should not be subjected to high taxes and said that Germany must become a “climate-neutral industrial country” but claimed doing so too quickly could lead to outsourcing of industrial jobs to countries like China.
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