Gerhard Schröders electoral troubles only seem to increase. With Merkel’s lead seemingly consolidating rather than reducing, a recent poll now shows the alliance between the former communists in the east and Election Alternative in the west set to win 8% of the vote:
Experts say the new group could attract votes from Social Democrats in the west unhappy with Schroeder’s efforts to trim social programs, and from unemployed people in the economically depressed east fed up with his recent cuts in unemployment benefits.
A poll showed the alliance getting 8 percent ? well over the 5 percent barrier needed for representation in parliament. Schroeder’s party had 27 percent, trailing the conservative Christian Democrats of challenger Angela Merkel at 44 percent.
The poll, for ZDF television by the Mannheim Election Research Group, surveyed 1,175 people June 21-23. The margin of error was plus or minus 2.7 percentage points.
The new group showed its appeal Tuesday when veteran Social Democratic legislator in the state of Baden-Wuerttemburg defected to take up its cause. Ulrich Mauer, the party’s former regional head, said he was joining the left alliance because it was “the only chance” to stop the advance of the center-right.
Feed: A Fistful of Euros
June 29th, 2005 at 10:26 am
What are the percentages of FDP and Greens?
June 29th, 2005 at 2:18 pm
They seem to mean last weekend’s ZDF poll at http://www.zdf.de/ZDFde/inhalt/0/0,1872,2326432,00.html
Union: 44%
SPD: 27%
Greens: 9%
Linkspartei: 8%
FDP 7%
June 29th, 2005 at 5:19 pm
How accurate is a projection for a new party?
June 30th, 2005 at 6:46 pm
“How accurate is a projection for a new party?”
I don’t know, I kind of thought you might.
June 30th, 2005 at 11:16 pm
It sounds realistic, but this is an election which +/- 2% could make a significant difference in. I just don’t see how you can compute likely voter numbers for a party that has never run. Therefore I’d say that all we can know now is that the present government will fall, anything else is unknown.
July 4th, 2005 at 7:48 pm
If you look here:
http://www.wahlrecht.de/ueberhang/ueberhist.html
You’ll see the history of overhanging seats. Clearly you can see that the eastern state caused a drastic rise in the number of the overhanging seats. This is due to the existance of a strong third party. I can imagine the WASG/PDS having the effect in all of Germany. This benefits the predominant party, in this election the CDU. I predict a record number of overhanging seats in the next election.