Grudge in the face of the failures of the management of the pandemic, scandals: Angela Merkel and the German conservatives see their popularity drop to a week of regional elections having a test value in view of the legislative elections at the end of September.
Chancellor’s Christian Democratic Party (CDU) and her Bavarian Christian-social ally CSU only garner 32% of voting intentions, lower than in the last parliamentary elections in 2017 (32.9%), according to a poll published Sunday by the daily Bild.
This is a drop of two points in a week and also the lowest level reached in a year by this political family.
And for Angela Merkel, at the pinnacle of her popularity a year ago during the first wave of Covid-19, the next few months until the general election on September 26 risk darkening the end of her political career.
“Is the CDU going to sink into the corona swamp?” “Asks the popular daily Bild on Sunday.
“Fall in the polls, corruption in the Chamber of Deputies, debacle on vaccines. For a long time the CDU and the CSU were the winners of the corona crisis (…) It’s over, ”he said.
Latest pitfall: two deputies from his political family are suspected of having enriched themselves thanks to the pandemic by collecting commissions of several hundred thousand euros for having served as intermediaries for manufacturers in the purchase of masks anti-Covid by the authorities.
One of them, Nikolas Löbel (CDU), announced on Sunday that he was leaving politics. “I take responsibility for my actions and draw the consequences,” he said. The other, Georg Nüsslein (CSU), is the subject of an investigation for corruption by the prosecution. He would have received 600,000 euros.
“Those who use the suffering of people to line their pockets have no place in Parliament! ”, Condemned the youth movement of the CDU on twitter.
Tilting
The reversal of fortune for Angela Merkel’s conservatives is spectacular. A year ago, they still had almost 40% of voting intentions during the first wave of the pandemic, at a time when Germany was a good student in Europe in the face of Covid-19.
Since then, the country has lagged behind. The vaccination campaign is judged by public opinion to be far too slow (around 5% of the population has so far taken advantage of it), the promised distribution of antigenic tests is chaotic and the discontent against the restrictive measures continues to swell , although Berlin has started to relax them.
What had the strength of Germany during the first wave, its federal and decentralized system allowing management as close as possible to the pandemic, has turned into a handicap with permanent conflicts between central government and regions and numerous bureaucratic obstacles.
Some 47% of Germans now say they are dissatisfied with the government’s work, compared to 43% who approve of it, according to the Bild poll conducted by the Kantar Institute.
Resignation request
It is the Minister of Health Jens Spahn, rising star of the CDU, considered a few weeks ago as a possible successor to Angela Merkel, who concentrates the criticisms.
“That is enough, Mr Spahn!” The Minister of Health is expected to resign. Not enough masks, not enough vaccines, antigenic tests that come too late. The crisis takes on the appearance of a farce and must have consequences, ”the weekly Der Spiegel ruled this week.
Two movements opposed to the anti-Covid restrictions are taking advantage of this in voting intentions: the far right of the Alternative for Germany (AfD) which is growing at 10% and the liberal FDP party at 9%.
This climate is bad news for the Chancellor one week before two regional elections, in Baden-Württemberg and Rhineland-Palatinate, in the form of a test before the legislative elections.
In both cases, the CDU is given the loser in the polls, ahead of the ecologists in the first Land and by the Social Democrats in the second.