Germany is preparing for complex coalition negotiations after the national election in September, after the leaders of the two most powerful parties failed to impress voters by responding to last month’s election. Devastating flood And boosted the confidence of the small party.
The two-way alliance between the conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and the German Green Party formed by the outgoing Chancellor Angela Merkel and the German Green Party has long been considered the country to take place within seven weeks The most probable result of the vote, opinion polls show that the ruling majority is always between one and two parties.
However, the flood that brought catastrophic damage and loss of life to the western German states just over a month ago has caused the main candidates of the CDU and the Green Party to be subject to more and more scrutiny, but their status has not been improved as a result. .
Despite repeated visits to the affected towns, Merkel’s designated continuity candidate, Armin Raschelt, Has been working hard to establish an image of a competent crisis manager: Joker joke In the context of the press conference, the hostile response of locals homeless due to flooding has intensified rather than narrowed the gap between the outgoing prime minister and his aspiring successor.
“Laschet’s appearance in front of the camera did not help him,” said Stefan Merz, head of the polling agency Infratest Dimap. “There is a feeling that the party is a little nervous about its position.”
“Der Spiegel” wrote: “Maybe it is the wrong time for Amin Raschelt.” “He is a good host who can make conflicts disappear. But currently this country needs a doer who can solve multiple crises.”
In the four weeks after the flood, the CDU’s lead fell from an average of 29% in opinion polls to 26%.
Laschet’s closest competitor, the green candidate Annalena Baerbock, deliberately visited the flood-affected area without carrying news materials. Pay attention Being seen as openly politicizing the loss of human lives can be counterproductive.
The Green Party’s poll data has since rebounded, but the magnitude is small, especially considering that record global rainfall and forest fires have made the party’s core issue Top of the agendaIn the weeks after Belbok was announced as the prime minister’s candidate, the party briefly led the polls.
According to a survey by Infratest Dimap, Laschet and Baerbock are now the party candidates with the lowest approval ratings since the polling agency began to raise this issue in 1998.
One Polls summaryAccording to a report released by Pollytix Strategic Research, since the beginning of this month, the CDU-Green Alliance has failed to gain a majority of the ruling seats, thus increasing the participation of the third-ranked Social Democratic Party (SPD) in the next German government. possibility. Democratic Party (FDP), or both.
“Compared with a month ago, a functioning government now seems more likely to need a power-sharing agreement between the three parties,” Meltz said.
Meuse said that since the flood, the only candidate whose reputation has improved is Olaf Schultz of the Social Democratic Party, who is Merkel’s current finance minister of the coalition. The polling agency said that in the most recent survey, most of the people surveyed said that if they could directly vote for the next leader of Germany, they would vote for Scholz.
In a poll released by Insa on Sunday, the Social Democrats leveled 18% of the Greens and added a “German Alliance” led by the SPD, the Greens, and the FDP to the list of potential results in September. “.
Such an outcome may test the patience of voters: the last time a German party tried to establish a tripartite power-sharing agreement between the CDU, the Green Party and the FDP in 2017, the coalition collapsed after two months of negotiations.
