Half of Germany wants polls after coalition talks fail

MERKEL COULD BENEFIT FROM A WISH FOR STABILITY IN A NEW POLL, BUT VOTERS COULD TURN AGAINST HER, BOOSTING THE RIGHTWING AFD PARTY.

BERLIN: Half of Germans are in favour of calling a new election after Chancellor Angela Merkel failed to reach a deal to form a new coalition with two other parties, while a fifth back forming a minority government, an opinion poll showed on Wednesday.

The poll, conducted by INSA for the Bild daily, showed 49.9% favouring another election.

It also showed 48.5% think the centre-left Social Democrats (SPD) are right to rule out joining a new “grand coalition” with Merkel’s conservatives, which only 18% would favour. The SPD lost ground in the September election after sharing power with Merkel for the last four years.

The collapse of talks between Merkel’s conservative bloc, the pro-business Free Democrats (FDP) and environmentalist Greens has thrown Germany into political uncertainty and raised the prospect of new elections.

The poll showed that 28% blame FDP leader Christian Lindner for the failure of the talks, followed by 27%, who blame Merkel, while 13% blame Greens leader Cem Ozdemir.

Four out of 10 people polled say Merkel should run again as chancellor if new elections are called, while 24% would prefer another candidate for her Christian Democrats (CDU), although there is little consensus on who that should be.

The poll showed that most voters would prefer a coalition between the CDU and FDP after new elections, followed by a coalition between SPD, Greens and the left-wing Linke.

However, the poll showed that a new election would bring little change to the results of the September vote, with the CDU down slightly on 30%, the SPD steady on 21%, the Greens on 10% and the FDP on 11%.

That would still mean that the only possible coalitions with a majority would be between the CDU and the SPD or between the CDU, FDP and Greens.