Foreign

Merkel’s conservatives soar to new polling heights in Covid-19 crisis

German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s bloc has reached new heights in an opinion poll released on Friday, as citizens put their faith in the conservatives’ handling of the coronavirus pandemic.

A survey conducted by the ZDF public broadcaster found that 39 per cent of people would vote for the Christian Democrats (CDU) or their CSU regional allies if national elections were held this Sunday, up four percentage points on the last result in early April.

This was the centre-right alliance’s third consecutive boost in the ZDF poll and its highest performance of this legislative period.

Merkel’s centre-left coalition partners, the Social Democrats (SPD), however, have struggled to make gains during the crisis, dropping by one percentage point to 16 per cent compared to the start of the month.

The Greens, which had been gaining ground in state and EU polls in the run-up to Germany’s 2021 elections, have also slumped by 2 points to 18 per cent.

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The far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) has so far failed to benefit from the pandemic, dropping to 9 per cent in the latest survey following highs of around 16 per cent in the latter half of 2019.

Merkel remains the country’s most popular politician, scoring 2.6 on a scale of plus 5 to minus 5 in terms of voter satisfaction, ZDF said. This was an improvement on her last result, when she scored 2.0. (dpa)

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