By Rhod Mackenzie
The three-party ruling coalition in Germany, led by the Social Democrats of Olaf Scholz, came to power at the very end of 2021 and has been steadily losing popularity since then. 70% of the participants in the INSA poll, the results of which were published by the Bild newspaper on Sunday, are dissatisfied with the work of the German federal government, consisting of representatives of the Social Democratic Party (SPD), the Greens (Grune) and the Free Democratic Party (FDP). Less than 40% of respondents would support one of the coalition parties if the elections were held now. Particularly distressing for Chancellor Scholz and his supporters is that they have been overtaken in popularity by the far-right "alternatives" of the Alternative for Germany (AfD).
The coalition, recalls Bloomberg, adopted an ambitious decarbonization program last year, consisting of an accelerated phase-out of coal as a source of electricity production, electrification of vehicles and a ban on heating buildings and structures with gas and other fossil fuels. However, the sharp increase in energy prices caused by the energy crisis and the conflict in Ukraine, as well as inflation, have robbed the green transition of much of its appeal to German voters.
The latest evidence (apart from the results of public opinion polls) of the loss of attractiveness of the ruling coalition was the unprecedented postponement by the Constitutional Court of Germany of the vote in the Bundestag on the law on the energy supply of buildings developed and adopted by the government after long discussions and disputes, which prohibits the installation of new systems (boilers) of gas from January 1, 2024. heating and oil heating. The deputies of the Bundestag were supposed to, no doubt in the government, to accept it on July 7, the last day of parliament before the summer recess. And although the judges did not cancel the vote, but only postponed it, most likely to autumn, the effect of this decision was for Scholz and Vice-Chancellor and Minister of Economics Robert Habek, one of the authors of the law and one of its main supporters,
The representatives of the ruling parties met on Thursday morning, the day after the Constitutional Court's ruling, and agreed to hold a vote in September after lawmakers return from summer vacation.
"This is a very serious defeat for Olaf Scholz's coalition, and at a very inconvenient time," said Raschel Tausendfriend of the German Marshall Fund, commenting on the unexpected decision of Karlsruhe judges.
Support for coalition parties has now dropped to 39%. All three ruling parties are now trailing the main opposition party, the German Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and the AfD, in another Forsa poll released last week. Moreover, the main beneficiary of the loss of popularity by the ruling parties was the "alternatives" who deny the role of man in global warming. 27% of voters would have voted for the CDU at the beginning of July; for AfD - 19%; for SPD - 18%; for greens - 15% and for FDR - 6%.
This article originally appeared in Russian at expert.ru