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Politics

Greens overtake Merkel's CDU in poll first

June 1, 2019

Germany's Green Party has, for the first time, outperformed Angela Merkel's ruling Christian Democrats in a poll. While the Greens made major gains, larger parties took a drubbing in last weekend's European elections.

Green balloons
Image: picture alliance / dpa

In a first, a survey released Saturday put Germany's Greens ahead of Chancellor Angela Merkel's ruling conservative bloc.

The Forsa poll gave the Greens a 27% approval rating — a jump of 9 percentage points from the previous week. Merkel's Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and the allied Bavarian Christian Social Union (CSU) fell two points to 26%.

The result comes a week after the Greens emerged as the second-strongest force in the European Parliament elections with 20.1% of the vote. The CDU/CSU and its junior coalition partners, the Social Democrats (SPD), on the other hand, suffered historic losses. The CDU/CSU managed 28.9%, while the SPD took 15.8%.

Read moreGerman political parties go green for EU 'climate election'

In the Forsa survey, the SPD dropped by 5 percentage points to 12%, its lowest-ever score on a national level. It came just ahead of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party's 11%.

The poll, commissioned by German broadcasters RTL and n-tv, was conducted from May 27 to 31 and had 2001 participants.

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nm/sms (AFP, dpa)

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