Greens overtake Merkel's CDU in poll first
June 1, 2019
In a first, a survey released Saturday put Germany's Greens ahead of Chancellor Angela Merkel's ruling conservative bloc.
The Forsa poll gave the Greens a 27% approval rating — a jump of 9 percentage points from the previous week. Merkel's Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and the allied Bavarian Christian Social Union (CSU) fell two points to 26%.
The result comes a week after the Greens emerged as the second-strongest force in the European Parliament elections with 20.1% of the vote. The CDU/CSU and its junior coalition partners, the Social Democrats (SPD), on the other hand, suffered historic losses. The CDU/CSU managed 28.9%, while the SPD took 15.8%.
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In the Forsa survey, the SPD dropped by 5 percentage points to 12%, its lowest-ever score on a national level. It came just ahead of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party's 11%.
The poll, commissioned by German broadcasters RTL and n-tv, was conducted from May 27 to 31 and had 2001 participants.
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nm/sms (AFP, dpa)