(Angus Reid Global Monitor) - The two centre-right parties in Germany’s governing coalition have clearly consolidated their power in the country, according to a poll by Forsa released by Stern and RTL. 40 per cent of respondents would back the Christian-Democratic Union (CDU) or the Bavarian Christian-Social Party (CSU) in the next election to the Federal Diet, up one point since late September.

The Social Democratic Party (SPD) is second with 25 per cent, followed by the Left Party (Linke) with 11 per cent, the Green Party (Grune) with 10 per cent, and the Free Democratic Party (FDP) with nine per cent.

Official results from the September 2005 election to the Federal Diet gave the CDU and the CSU 226 seats, with the SPD a close second with 222 legislators. Neither of the two main parties was able to assemble a coalition government with their preferred partners. In November 2005, CDU leader Angela Merkel was sworn in as Germany’s first female head of government. The current administration includes members of the CDU, CSU and SPD.

Every year, the government commissions a study of its economic policies to four major economic institutes. On Oct. 18, following their survey, the institutes criticized Merkel’s latest economic proposals, which include increasing unemployment benefits to people over 50, saying this could bring more unemployment. Roland Doern of the RWI Institute declared: "Older jobseekers are now coming back into the labour market faster. Given Germany’s aging population, that’s precisely what we want to see. By increasing their unemployment benefits, you would be going completely in the wrong direction."

A statement from the Deutsche Bank said it could "only support the criticism", adding, "The extent to which policies that have demonstrably contributed to the remarkable drop in unemployment and are seen as models in other countries are now being questioned is astonishing."

Polling Data

What party would you support in Germany’s next federal election?

Source: Forsa / Stern / RTL
Methodology: Interviews with 2,502 German adults, conducted from Oct. 8 to Oct. 12, 2007. Margin of error is 2.5 per cent.

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