Germany’s main political parties have lost support as the far-right AfD gained ground in one of the last polls released before Sunday’s election, pointing to a likely tricky coalition-building process that could take months.
The vote comes at an awkward time, leaving a leadership vacuum in the heart of Europe just as it tries to grapple with a confrontational US President Donald Trump, whose apparent desire to disengage from the region and repair ties with Russia is raising questions about the strength of the Western alliance.
Friedrich Merz’s conservative CDU/CSU bloc, which had consistently led the polls for months, fell one percentage point to 29 percent support in the Forsa survey, while the Alternative for Germany (AfD) gained one point to 21 percent.
Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s Social Democrats fell one point to 15 percent, while the Greens and the pro-market Free Democrats (FDP) held steady at 13 and five percent respectively. The far-left Left party increased its support by one point to eight percent.
With all parties refusing to work with the AfD in a country plagued by its Nazi past, the latest poll shows it will be almost impossible for any other parties to form a majority.
Instead, leader Merz will likely have to form a three-way coalition with either the SPD and the Greens or the SPD and the FDP, according to the poll, making negotiations even more difficult.
It also suggests the next coalition could be just as incoherent and difficult to manage as the three-party alliance led by Scholz that collapsed last November after just three years in power, Reuters reports.
