BERLIN, Sept 21 — Germany’s Social Democrats (SPD) saw their lead over Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservatives narrow in a poll published today, pointing to a tightening race just five days before a federal election.
The SPD, whose candidate for chancellor Olaf Scholz is currently vice chancellor and finance minister in Merkel’s grand coalition, remained stable at 25 per cent, according to the Forsa poll for RTL/n-tv television.
Support for the conservative CDU/CSU alliance, whose chancellor candidate is Armin Laschet, edged up one percentage point to 22 per cent.
The other parties were all unchanged with the Greens on 17 per cent, the business-friendly Free Democrats (FDP) at 11 per cent, the far-right AfD at 11 per cent and the anti-capitalist Left party at 6 per cent.
Forsa projected that the SPD would win 206 seats in the next Bundestag, the lower house of parliament, the CDU/CSU bloc 185, the Greens 140, the FDP and the AfD both 91 each and the Left 49.
This raises the possibility of four coalition options after Sunday’s election:
the SPD with the Greens and FDP, also known as a traffic light coalition due to their party colours of red, green and yellow;
the CDU/CSU bloc with the Greens and the FDP, described as a Jamaica coalition in reference to the country’s flag and the party colours of black, green and yellow;
SPD with the Greens and the Left, dubbed R2G or red-green-red coalition;
or an SPD-led grand coalition with the conservatives as junior partner.
All parties have ruled out working with the populist, far-right AfD.
Scholz and the Greens have also poured cold water on the idea of forming a coalition with the conservatives, saying that the CDU/CSU alliance needed to rebuild itself in opposition following 16 years of Merkel’s consensus-driven, centrist rule. — Reuters
