The CSU chairman Markus Söder is calling for it, as is the left-wing leader Martin Schirdewan. But most Germans remain against early elections for the Bundestag. What’s more: the proportion of those opposing new elections has actually increased since autumn.
There is great dissatisfaction with the traffic light coalition, but that does not mean that a majority of Germans believe that quick new elections to the Bundestag are right. Like a Forsa survey commissioned by star showed that 51 percent were in favor of an early vote and 46 percent were against it. Three percent express no opinion.
Only the supporters of the Union and AfD are in favor of quick new elections to the Bundestag. 91 percent of AfD voters are in favor of it, while 56 percent of CDU/CSU voters are in favor of it. The supporters of the traffic light parties are clearly against new elections – 87 percent each for the SPD and the Greens and 56 percent for the FDP.
Forsa had already asked the same question in November. The proportion of those in favor of new elections has remained unchanged, and the proportion of opponents has even increased by three percentage points since then.
New elections were recently called for by CSU leader Markus Söder and Left Party leader Martin Schirdewan. However, the constitutional hurdles for this are high. In 2005, SPD Chancellor Gerhard Schröder intentionally lost a vote of confidence in the Bundestag. Afterwards, the then Federal President Horst Köhler dissolved parliament. How the current head of state would decide in a comparable situation is considered completely open in Berlin. In 2017, Frank-Walter Steinmeier pushed the SPD into a grand coalition after talks on a Jamaica government failed. If the traffic light coalition were to break up, it would be quite possible that this time he would demand that the Union government cooperate with the SPD.
The data was compiled by the market and opinion research institute forsa star and RTL Deutschland on January 11th and 12th. Database: 1001 respondents. Statistical margin of error: +/- 3 percentage points
Source: Stern
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