German liberal-conservative coalition short of parliamentary majority: poll – POLITICO.eu

German Chancellor Angela Merkel in the Bundestag, lower house of Parliament, on June 29, 2017 in Berlin | John MacDougall/AFP via Getty Images

CDU and FDP would only get 47 percent of the vote, poll suggests.

By Cynthia Kroet

8/9/17, 10:48 AM CET

A coalition between Angela Merkels Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and the liberal Free Democratic Party (FDP) would fallshort of a majority in parliamentif federal elections were held today, according to an opinion poll published Wednesday.

The conservative CDU together with its Bavarian sister party CSU remained stable compared to last weeks survey with 40 percent of the vote, while the FDP led by 38-year-old Christian Lindner lost 1 percentage point and fell back to 7 percent, according to the Stern-RTL Wahltrend.

Together, the possible coalition partners would only get 47 percent of the vote.

The FDP hasnt seen the inside of the German parliament since 2013, when they suffered a humiliating general election thrashing that left the party without any seats in the Bundestag for the first time since 1949.

Lindner, credited by some for reviving the liberal party,has said he would pursue a softer line on Brexit, called for Greece to be granted debt relief and temporarily forced out of the eurozone, and suggested Germany consider the Russian annexation of Crimea a permanent provisional solution.

Martin Schulzs Social Democratic Party (SPD), the current junior coalition partner in government, rose slightly in the polls to 23 percent after stagnating for four consecutive weeks. The Greens, leftist Die Linke and far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) are all projected to get 8 percent of the vote.

Asked who they would prefer as chancellor, half of the respondents opted for Merkel, while 21 percent chose Schulz, marking his lowest level of support since his nomination as the SPDs candidate in January.

Germany goes to the polls on September 24.

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German liberal-conservative coalition short of parliamentary majority: poll - POLITICO.eu