By Jörg Schurig, dpa I Friday, August 30, 2024
BERLIN – The centre-right Christian Democrats (CDU) appear to hold a very narrow lead, with 33% support, just days ahead of the regional parliamentary election in the eastern German state of Saxony.
This is the result of a new poll released on Friday.
But the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party is only narrowly behind at 31% and within the three-point margin of error, according to the poll conducted by the forsa polling firm on behalf of broadcaster RTL.
The populist “left-conservative” Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance (BSW) placed third in the poll with 12%.
A strong expected performance by the radical AfD in Saxony and the state of Thuringia, which both hold elections on Sunday, has put many in Germany on edge.
Even if the AfD finishes first, other parties have vowed to freeze them out of government by rejecting any type of cooperation.
The regional AfD parties in both states have been labelled known far-right extremist groups by the domestic intelligence agencies.
In Saxony, however, popular incumbent state Premier Michael Kretschmer of the CDU appears to be buoying the prospects for his party ahead of the vote.
The poll found Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s centre-left Social Democrats (SPD) at 7%, while the Greens are at 6%, just over the 5% threshold needed to take seats in German elections.
Those results would give Kretschmer enough support to continue his current coalition of the CDU, Greens and SPD. A potential pairing of the CDU and BSW would also be possible.
Forsa surveyed 1,012 voters in Saxony from August 27 to 29.
The poll results are essentially in line with another poll of Saxon voters published a few hours earlier by public broadcaster ZDF.
That poll, conducted by Forschungsgruppe Wahlen, surveyed about 1,900 people between August 26 and 29.
There, the CDU also came in at 33% and the AfD at 30%, followed by the BSW in third place with 12%.
The SPD and the Greens each came in at 6%, while the hard-left Die Linke also fell short with just 4%.
Election polls are generally always fraught with uncertainty.
Among other things, declining party loyalty among German voters and increasingly short-term election decisions make it difficult for opinion researchers to weight the data.
In principle, polls only reflect the opinion at the time of the survey and are not a forecast of the election outcome.
In another development, the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) holds a solid lead ahead of Sunday’s election in the German state of Thuringia, according to a new poll from public broadcaster ZDF.
The AfD drew support from 29% of voters in the poll, a clear lead ahead of the second-place conservative Christian Democrats (CDU) with 23%.
However, according to the survey, 29% of respondents are not yet sure who they plan to vote for – or whether they plan to vote at all.
The hard-left Die Linke (The Left), the party of the personally popular incumbent Thuringian state Premier Bodo Ramelow, stood at 13% in the poll, which would be a massive slide from the 31% the party gathered in the most recent state parliamentary election in 2019.
Die Linke’s decline appears driven by the rise of the upstart populist Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance (BSW), which splintered from Die Linke earlier this year and describe themselves as “left-conservative.”
The BSW gathered 18% in the poll.
Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s centre-left Social Democrats (SPD) polled at just 6%, while his coalition partners the Greens and the pro-business liberal Free Democrats (FDP) both polled below the 5% threshold needed to take seats in German elections.
The poll, conducted by Forschungsgruppe Wahlen, surveyed 1,973 randomly selected voters and has a margin of error of up to three percentage points.
