In a recent interview with T-Online, Maral Koohestanian, the Spitzenkandidatin of the Volt party, expressed confidence in her party’s chances of entering the German Bundestag. “We will clear the five-percent threshold” she claimed, citing a significant increase in their membership numbers since June. Koohestanian emphasized the importance of giving a voice to the young generation in the Bundestag and criticized current opinion polls that fail to separately list Volt. “We are not being asked individually and are running under ‘others'” she said, arguing that this distorts the picture, as the voting preferences of a large portion of the population are not being captured. “We therefore demand that all parties be explicitly listed in all polls” Koohestanian stated.
Volt has been advocating for a European army and increasing Germany’s defense budget to three percent of its gross domestic product. Koohestanian elaborated that the party supports even higher expenditures, viewing three percent as a “foundation for further increases in the defense budget, if necessary.” She noted that gaining the consent of other European countries would be crucial, as the chances of approval would significantly decrease if a country’s defense budget were to exceed six percent of its GDP.