Advertisement

New shock poll for Merkel's coalition

Author thumbnail
New shock poll for Merkel's coalition
Photo: DPA

Chancellor Angela Merkel was slapped with a new shock poll result on Friday that showed just one in five voters is happy with her government and – for the first time – a majority hankers for the old “grand coalition.”

Advertisement

If Merkel was hoping in the wake of a string of poor survey results that her numbers couldn’t get any worse, she was wrong: just 20 percent of respondents to the ARD-Deutschlandtrend poll said they were “happy” with the performance of the centre-right government, which was 6 percentage points fewer than a month ago.

None at all said they were “very happy” with the alliance of Merkel’s conservative Christian Democrats (CDU) and the pro-business Free Democrats (FDP). But 48 percent said they were “not very happy” and 30 percent “not at all happy.”

The appalling result follows widespread criticism of Merkel’s handling of the European debt crisis, with many voters angry at having to bail out Greece and many commentators accusing Merkel of acting too slowly to curb the crisis.

For the first time, a majority of voters – 58 percent – said they preferred the previous “grand coalition” government of Merkel’s CDU and the centre-left Social Democrats, which was often lambasted in its day for being unwieldy and ineffectual.

Just 22 percent said they wanted the CDU-FDP alliance to continue. Even a majority of CDU voters said they preferred the grand coalition.

On the debt crisis, some 64 percent of voters said the decision for Germany to give loan guarantees – as has been the case with Greece – in order to prop up the euro was the wrong decision. Only 31 percent thought it was right.

Nearly two thirds of voters – 64 percent – thought the budget black hole of €10 billion to €15 billion that they federal government is facing in the next year can only be recouped through tax increases.

The poll of 1,000 eligible voters was taken by the survey firm Infratest dimap on May 25 and 26.

More

Join the conversation in our comments section below. Share your own views and experience and if you have a question or suggestion for our journalists then email us at [email protected].
Please keep comments civil, constructive and on topic – and make sure to read our terms of use before getting involved.

Please log in to leave a comment.

See Also