7 November 2018

Social Europe: The SPD May Deal The Final Blow To Angela Merkel’s Chancellorship

The spiral downwards for the ruling CDU/CSU and the SPD was confirmed by an EMNID opinion poll on 27 October where 24 per cent said they would vote for the CDU/CSU in the next federal elections and 15 per cent for the SPD. The Greens were on 20 per cent and the AfD on 16 per cent, both ahead of the SPD.

The AfD is the party that has benefited most from the migration policy of Merkel and from her move to the centre of German politics leaving a gap on the right. The key to the party’s rise in 2014-15 was the establishment status it received from its early champions, who included a former culture editor of the Frankfurter Allgemeine, a professor of economics at the University of Hamburg, and – most significant – a former IBM executive and president of the Federation of German Industry, Hans-Olaf Henkel, who privately financed the party’s early activities. [...]

The Greens and the AfD are the only parties that have continued to improve their electoral position since the federal elections in 2017, where the Greens only came in sixth place. The Greens pose a threat to Germany’s two traditional political Volkspartei. The Social Democrats are losing young, metropolitan and pro-European supporters to the Greens. The Greens have also been able to appeal to many centrist supporters of the CDU/CSU who have become uncomfortable with their shift to the right. In the German state of Baden-Württemberg, the Greens are the senior partner in the coalition with the CDU.

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