Many Germans not satisfied with nascent democracy
By Anne-Béatrice Clasmann, dpa I Wednesday, November 13, 2024
BERLIN – Most Germans view the conservative leader Friedrich Merz as the front runner ahead of the country’s federal elections expected in February next year, a survey conducted by YouGov for dpa has showed, just as another findings reveal a lack of satisfaction with democratic performance.
Of nearly 2,200 respondents, 44% see Merz, the head of the Christian Democratic Union party ahead of Chancellor Olaf Scholz of the Social Democrats (SPD), who was supported by 6% of those surveyed.
Merz is the leading choice across all age groups, especially among older voters, where 57% of those over 70 favour him, compared to just 3% for Scholz.
Scholz also lacks strong support from his own party base. Only 8% of SPD voters from 2021 believe he has a chance for a second term.
Economy Minister Robert Habeck of the Greens got 7% support.
The far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) leader Alice Weidel was viewed as a potential chancellor candidate by 13% of respondents, despite the improbability of her getting Germany’s top political job, as no other party will work with the AfD in a coalition.
YouGov polled 2,193 people from November 8 to 12, and put the margin of error at +/- 2.1 percentage points.
Scholz’s squabbling coalition, which had been hanging by a thread, finally came apart last week when the chancellor fired a key minister from the pro-business Free Democrats (FDP).
Since the FDP no longer belongs to the coalition, Scholz lacks a majority in the Bundestag. That sets the stage for a vote of confidence next month that Scholz is all but certain to lose.
The election is expected to take place on February 23, but more than a quarter of respondents (29%) were undecided about the possible outcome.
According to the study, Nine out of 10 Germans continue to back democracy in theory, but the figure drops to less than half when they consider the way democracy works in practice in their own country, a study presented on Wednesday shows.
Asked whether they were satisfied with democracy “the way it works in the German federal republic,” only 42.3% answered positively, down from 57.7% two years ago, the Leipzig Authoritarian Study found.
The figure was the lowest since researchers Oliver Decker and Elmar Brähler launched the project in 2006. Just 29.7% of those in the east of the country gave a positive answer, by contrast with 45.5% in the west.
According to the study, Germany is facing a period of “uncertain development.”
It notes that although democracy is viewed sceptically by many German citizens, it is not yet clear whether authoritarian or extreme right-wing solutions would find favour among the population at large.
“However, there is a tendency towards escapism – a departure from reality that finds expression in superstition, conspiracy theories and esotericism,” the study stated.
A total of 2,500 people were interviewed in their homes between late March and mid-June 2024.
Anti-foreigner sentiment probed
The survey measured anti-foreigner sentiment, finding that 31.5% of East Germans and 19.3% of West Germans expressed hostility toward foreigners.
In the west, anti-foreigner attitudes were more prominent in those aged 61 and older, while in the east, this could be seen the group aged from 31 to 60.
Taking a range of criteria into account, the survey found a figure of 4.5% of the population in both east and west backed extreme right-wing ideas.
The study was conducted among German-speaking residents in cooperation with the Heinrich Boll Foundation, which is associated with the Green party, and the Otto Brenner Foundation of the IG Metall trade union.
