Merkel will not seek a new term as CDU leader, prompting many to doubt her future as chancellor. Voters are also not enthused about Merkel’s Interior Minister Horst Seehofer remaining in office, according to a new poll.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel holds a news conference following a Christian Democratic Union (CDU) leadership meeting in Berlin.
German voters feel Chancellor Angela Merkel should continue in office even after relinquishing her party’s leadership next month, Germany’s latest Deutschlandtrend survey carried out by public broadcaster ARD showed on Friday.
The poll showed that a vast majority of voters want Merkel to complete her tenure, which ends in 2021. More than three-quarters of her party voters feel she should continue. More than half of the supporters of environmentalist Greens, socialist Left Party and center-left SPD also agree.
Far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) voters overwhelmingly feel Merkel should step down.
The voters were not that generous to Merkel’s Interior Minister Horst Seehofer, who is stepping down as the head of CDU’s Bavarian sister party, the CSU.
Nearly three in every four voters feel that Seehofer should also quit his job in the federal government.
The polls put Merkel ally and CDU Secretary General Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer ahead in the race for CDU leadership. Kramp-Karrenbauer has the backing of 46 percent of her party voters.
She was followed by Friedrich Merz, a financial manager who has spent the past nine years out of politics, who polled 31 per cent. Jens Spahn, the 38-year-old health minister and a Merkel critic, managed just 12 per cent.
The Greens continued their surge in the latest poll, further closing in their gap with Merkel’s conservatives.
According to the poll, if federal elections were held this Sunday, 23 per cent of Germans would vote for the Greens. More than a quarter said they would vote for CDU/CSU.
Support for Merkel’s coalition partners, SPD, fell a further 1 percentage point to 14 per cent. The poll showed a drop in support for the AfD, which also recorded 14 per cent. -DW
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