Germany’s far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party has overtaken the co-ruling Social Democrats (SPD) in voter popularity to become the second-strongest party behind Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservatives, the Deutschlandtrend poll by public broadcaster ARD has shown on September 21.
The AfD moved up two percentage points since the last survey on September 9, bringing it to 18 percent — one percentage point more than the junior coalition partner SPD, which lost a point.
Merkel’s conservative CDU/CSU bloc, which has led German governments since 2005, also slipped a point to 28 percent, representing its worst result since the survey was launched in 1997.
The growing support for the AfD comes almost a year after it first entered the national parliament as the third-strongest force in German politics, winning 12.6 percent of the vote.
Source: DW
