Germany's AfD Leads Poll, Impacting Merz's Coalition Plans
BERLIN - Germany's far-right AfD party topped a major poll for the first time on Wednesday in a sign of growing dissatisfaction with mainstream parties as chancellor-in-waiting Friedrich Merz seeks to seal a coalition government deal.
Support for Merz's conservative CDU/CSU bloc, which won the February 23 election, fell by five percentage points to 24% while the Alternative for Germany (AfD) gained three points to land on 25%, according to the Ipsos institute's poll.
The AfD came second in the election, the best performance by a far-right party since World War Two.
Its polling strength is a setback for Merz's conservative alliance, which wanted to win back voters from the party.
The Ipsos poll showed support for outgoing Chancellor Olaf Scholz's Social Democrats (SPD) unchanged at 15%.
The centre-left SPD are in talks with the CDU/CSU to form Germany's next government, with the two sides forced to iron out their differences in policy areas such as tax and migration to keep the far right out of power.
The talks are expected to conclude later on Wednesday, sources told Reuters.
AfD leader Alice Weidel hailed her party's polling breakthrough in a post on X. "The people want political change - and not a 'business as usual' coalition of CDU/CSU and SPD," she wrote.
(Reporting by Rachel More, Editing by Miranda Murray)
