Support for Merkel’s Alliance Hits Record Low

Local Editor

After a recent political row over country's migration policy, support for Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservative bloc - Christian Democratic Union [CDU] and its Bavarian allies, the Christian Social Union (CSU) has slumped to a record low - at 29 percent.

In turn, the poll showed that the support for the Alternative for Germany (AfD) party gained a record high of 17 percent.

The survey also revealed that two SPD politicians — German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas and Finance Minister Olaf Scholz —were Germany's most popular and second most ppular politicians, while Angela Merkel came only third.

In last September's federal election, the CDU/CSU alliance won 32.9 percent of the vote and the AfD surged into the national parliament for the first time with 12.6 percent, making it the third largest party. The SPD came second with 20.5 percent.

In July, German Interior Minister and leader of Bavaria's Christian Social Union Horst Seehofer presented his migration plan, which included creation of transit centers for migrants at the German-Austrian border. However, other federal states of Germany delayed creation of such centers or refused to participate in the program.

The decision to create migrant processing centers was made by Germany after a July crisis in the ruling coalition, with Seehofer having demanded a stricter migration political course from the federal government.

The microcensus by the Federal Statistical Office [Destatis] revealed on Wednesday that Germany has seen a year-on-year increase of 4.4 percent in population with foreign roots in 2017 as their number exceeded 19 million.

The population of Germany stands at 82.7 million as of September 2017, according to the office. Thus, the share of people with foreign roots amounts to over 23 percent.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel's decision to open the country's borders to refugees faced criticism from a number of political parties and movements that oppose migration. Recent polls showed that most German citizens believed that the country’s migration policy was too careless.

Source: News Agencies, Edited by website team