Nearly two-thirds of Germans want new government, poll says
Richard Connor10 hours ago10 hours ago
A survey shows nearly two-thirds of voters want to pull the plug on Germany's ruling coalition. The poll comes immediately after figures that show most Germans are unhappy with Chancellor Olaf Scholz and his government.
Nearly two-thirds of Germans want new government, poll says – DW – 08/19/2023
A survey shows nearly two-thirds of voters want to pull the plug on Germany's ruling coalition. The poll comes immediately after figures that show most Germans are unhappy with Chancellor Olaf Scholz and his government.
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The FDP's Christian Lindner, the SPD's Olaf Scholz, and Green co-leaders Annalena Baerbock and Robert HabeckImage: Michael Kappeler/dpa/picture alliance
As many as 64% of Germans who answered in the survey released on Saturday said a change of government would make the country a better place.
The poll, for the mass-circulation newspaper Bild, comes the day after a separate survey found that most Germans were dissatisfied with Chancellor Olaf Scholz and the coalition.
What else did the poll show?
Only 22% of those surveyed by the polling agency INSA said they thought an election would not benefit Germany.The same percentage said they were satisfied with the work of Olaf Scholz as chancellor, with 70% saying they were not.
Pollsters also asked about the so-called "traffic light" coalition of center-left Social Democrats (SPD), the Greens, and the neoliberal Free Democrats (FDP). Voters were asked how it measured up against Chancellor Angela Merkel's "Grand Coalition" of conservative Christian Democrats/Christian Socialists (CDU/CSU) and the SPD.
Germany's colorful coalition shorthand
Foreign flags and even traffic lights are used to describe the various coalitions that emerge in German elections. Coalitions are common under Germany's proportional representation system.
Image: Getty Images
Black-red coalition
Conservative black combined with transformative red is the color code when the Christian Democrats govern in a grand coalition with the Social Democrats. This 'grand coalition' government has been in power for the past eight years under Chancellor Angela Merkel.
Image: picture-alliance/R. Goldmann
'Pizza Connection'
When Bonn was still Germany's capital, individual conservatives and Greens met from 1995 in its suburban Italian Sassella restaurant. Since then, the 'Pizza Connection' has become code for speculation over further links. At regional level, Baden-Württemburg's Greens-CDU coalition has governed since 2016.Image: picture-alliance/dpa
'Jamaica' option - black, yellow and green
A three-way deal between the conservative Christian Democrats (CDU), the Greens and the liberal Free Democrats, whose color is yellow did not come about at national level in 2017 after the FDP called off talks. It has been tested at a state level, however, where Schleswig-Holstein currently has a "Jamaica" government.Image: picture-alliance/dpa/dpaweb
Black, red, green, symbolized by Kenya's flag
So far, a 'Kenyan' coalition has only emerged at the regional state level in the East, in response to a rise of the far-right AfD taking a quarter of the votes. Brandenburg and Saxony have had such a coalition government since 2019.Image: Fotolia/aaastocks
'Traffic light' coalition
The free-market-oriented liberal FDP, whose color is yellow, has in the past generally ruled out federal coalitions sandwiched between the Social Democrats, whose color is red, and the Greens. But a current example is Rhineland Palatinate's three-way regional state coalition based in Mainz and headed by Social Democrat Malu Dreyer.Image: picture alliance/dpa/J.Büttner
Only 10% said the current coalition was doing better, with 49% viewing it as worse. Some 28% said the result was mixed depending on policy areas.
More bad news for coalition
A day earlier, the "Politbarometer" poll published by Germany's Forschungsgruppe Wahlen (Elections Research Group) on behalf of the public broadcaster ZDF also showed voter dissatisfaction with Scholz.It found that 51% were unhappy with his performance in office and that 58% thought the government was doing a poor job.
One silver lining for the chancellor was just over half of Germans thought a government led by the opposition conservatives would not do any better.
There was historically weak support for Scholz's SPD, too. Only 19% said they would vote for the party if an election was imminent, with the Greens on 15% and the FDP on 7%.
The CDU/CSU bloc scored 26% voter support in the poll, while the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) mustered 19%.
Far-right issues election war cry
AfD leader Tino Chrupalla on Saturday said his party had the CDU/CSU firmly in its sights, with the AfD's voter share having risen from 10.3% in the 2021 general election to as high as 21% in recent months."CDU leader Friedrich Merz wanted to halve us," said Chrupulla, referring to Merz's 2018 claim that his party would soundly fend off the AfD's challenge from the right. "Instead, we have doubled," the politician told a conference for the party's branch in the northern state of Lower Saxony.
"We have to halve the CDU," he added, also taking a swipe at the Greens as "the most dangerous party" that would have to be vanquished.
