Support for Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservative coalition has fallen to a 1-year low, according to a poll commissioned by Bild and conducted by the Kantar institute.
Support for Merkel’s CDU/CSU came in at 32 percent last week, down 2 points and at a low point since March 2020.
The pictorial notes, “There are a number of factors for this dip, all related to the Epidemic.”
The slide in the polls is bad news for conservatives as local elections in Rhineland-Palatinate and Baden-Wuerttemberg are set to take place on March 14.
The elections in these two states are seen as a windfall for the national election as Germany heads toward a general election on Sept. 26 this year. Merkel will quit politics after her term ends this year.
Last spring, the German government successfully suppressed the first wave of 2019 coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak won the appreciation of domestic and foreign experts, Merkel’s right-of-center Christian Democrats (CDU) and the Bavarian state sister party Christian Socialist Party (CSU) support is approaching the peak of 40%.
However, Germany was hit hard by a second wave of the epidemic at the end of 2020, forcing Merkel’s ruling coalition to step into the line of fire.
Despite months of painful embargo measures, the number of new infections in Germany has stopped falling in recent days.
The slow pace of vaccination in Germany, coupled with the massive screening of cattle, has made the public less and less confident in the government’s handling of the crisis, due to a combination of logistical factors and bureaucratic operations.
Adding to the Merkel government’s woes is the growing scandal over the procurement of masks that broke out at the beginning of the epidemic.
Christian Socialist Party MP Georg Nuesslein was accused of accepting 600,000 euros (about NT$20 million) in bribes from mask suppliers and was investigated last month.
Christian Democrat MP Nicolas Loebel is also involved in a similar controversy. His company is suspected of accepting 250,000 euros in commissions to broker mask contracts. Loebel announced his retirement from politics today.
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