Berlin, Sept. 14 (BNA): Germany’s federal election approaches, with a record number of undecided voters less than two weeks before the polls, as center-right Chancellor Angela Merkel does not seek a fifth term in office. Tuesday’s survey showed.
The poll, conducted by the Allensbach Research Institute for the conservative Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung newspaper, found that only 60% of voters who are determined to participate in the elections have so far decided which party they will support, Reuters reports.
That means 40% of voters are still undecided, up from 35% at this point in the campaign in 2017 and from just 24% in 2013.
As the most important reason for their reluctance, two out of three poll respondents said that none of the top candidates to replace Merkel as chancellor were convincing.
Some respondents also said that their reluctance stems from the fact that a lot could still happen before Election Day.
Others said they were not sure how the party they were inclined to support might act in future coalition talks.
A Forsa poll for RTL/n-tv television, published on Tuesday, showed conservatives in Merkel’s presidency with their top candidate, Armin Laschet, taking two percentage points a week to 21%.
But the center-left Social Democrats and their first candidate, Olaf Schultz, the current vice chancellor and finance minister, remained in pole position with 25%.
The Greens stood at 17%, the pro-business Liberal Democrats (FDP) at 11%, the far-right Alternative Party at 11%, and the far-left Link at 6%.
This means that Scholz could become a chancellor in a tripartite alliance with either the Greens and the FDP, also known as the “Traffic Light” coalition, or a more left-leaning alliance with the Greens and the Lenkes.
But Laschet could, in theory, also try to form a tripartite alliance with the FDP and the Green Party. All parties have ruled out working with the far-right Alternative Alternative.
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