Merkel’s Partner Hit by Weak Polls as New Leaders Take Over
A Clash With Merkel May Have Backfired on Her Coalition Partner
(Bloomberg) -- Germany’s Social Democrats, fresh from electing a leadership critical of Chancellor Angela Merkel, got a first taste of the challenge of returning the party to strength.
Support for Merkel’s junior coalition partner fell to 11% in a weekly Forsa poll, matching an all-time low reached in June. Another poll gave the SPD a 1-percentage-point bump.
The surveys follow a week dominated by the SPD’s attempt to revive its fortunes. Delegates backed a new tandem of leaders and endorsed policy demands that would ease years of fiscal discipline under Merkel. After initial speculation that the SPD might leave the government and trigger a political crisis, the party stepped back from the brink at a convention on Friday.
“We will talk and if there is a willingness to talk, there’s always the chance to keep going” with the coalition, SPD co-chairwoman Saskia Esken told broadcaster ARD on Sunday.
Merkel’s governing Christian Democrat-led bloc rose 1 percentage point to 28% in the Forsa poll, while the opposition Green party was unchanged in second place at 22%. The nationalist Alternative for Germany party, which rose 1 point to 14%, polled third.
The SPD rose 1 point to 16% and Merkel’s bloc was unchanged at 28% in a Nov. 27-Dec. 4 Emnid poll for Bild am Sonntag newspaper, published Sunday.
As the Social Democrats weigh their tactics, Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union over the weekend drove home its stance that the policy pact underpinning her coalition isn’t up for negotiation.
“I strongly advise against renegotiation,” Agriculture Minister Julia Kloeckner, a deputy national leader of the CDU, told Funke newspaper. “The government cannot and will not follow the SPD’s leftist course.”
“I would have appreciated a really clear signal from the SPD convention to continue the grand coalition,” CDU chairwoman Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer told Bild am Sonntag.
Merkel’s coalition with the Social Democrats is her third since she took office in 2005, but it’s been the most fraught. The 65-year-old German leader has said she won’t run again after completing her fourth term, which ends in 2021.
--With assistance from Patrick Henry.
To contact the reporter on this story: Jan-Patrick Barnert in Frankfurt at jbarnert3@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Beth Mellor at bmellor@bloomberg.net, Tony Czuczka, Sara Marley
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