BERLIN, Sept. 10 (Xinhua) -- Around two weeks before the Sept. 26 federal elections in Germany, the conservative parties -- the alliance of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and the Christian Social Union (CSU) -- continued to lag behind their current junior coalition partner, the Social Democratic Party (SPD), according to a Politbarometer survey published by the public broadcaster ZDF on Friday.
If the elections were held now, the SPD would receive 25 percent of the vote and become the country's strongest political party, three percentage points ahead of the CDU/CSU with 22 percent, according to the survey of around 1,300 Germans conducted by Forschungsgruppe Wahlen.
Olaf Scholz, currently federal minister of finance and SPD candidate, is well positioned to succeed Angela Merkel as chancellor and also enjoys the highest popularity rating of all candidates. According to the survey, 68 percent of Germans consider him a suitable choice as the next chancellor.
Armin Laschet for the CDU/CSU as well as Annalena Baerbock for the Green Party seem to have outsider chances only in the fight for the chancellorship. The candidates have lost public as well as political support over the last weeks, as two out of three Germans consider them unsuitable for the task.
In the survey, the Greens came in third with 17 percent, followed by the Alternative for Germany (AfD) and the Free Democratic Party (FDP), both with 11 percent, and the Left Party with six percent, according to Politbarometer.
Because a coalition with the Left Party has been formally ruled out by its competitors due to its foreign policy line and stance on NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) in particular, a three-party coalition of the SPD, the Greens and the FDP currently seems most likely, although other options are still on the table.
One in three Germans thinks that such a so-called "traffic light" coalition --referring to the red, yellow and green party colors -- would be a good solution, but more than 40 percent believe the opposite. However, all other potential coalitions are assessed even more negatively. Enditem
