A large majority of Germans no longer consider Chancellor Friedrich Merz the right person for the office, according to the results of a poll released on Saturday, dpa reports.

A total of 78% of participants in an online poll conducted by the Insa institute for the Bild newspaper answered ‘no’ to the question: ‘Is Friedrich Merz the right person for the office of chancellor?’

Only 14% of those surveyed answered ‘yes’ to the question, while 8% did not answer.

According to Bild, support for Merz has been declining since the middle of last year. At the time, more than 30% of respondents were still satisfied with his performance.

Merz, who leads the conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU), in an alliance with the Christian Social Union (CSU) in Bavaria, and is in a governing coalition with the Social Democratic Party (SPD), is unpopular even among conservatives.

Of the CDU voters surveyed, 58% said that Merz was not the right person for the office of chancellor, compared with 36% who answered the opposite.

SPD co-leader Lars Klingbeil also failed to achieve a good score in the poll, but performed better than Merz.

Asked whether ‘Lars Klingbeil is still the right leader for the SPD?’, 51% of respondents answered negatively and 24% ‘yes’. However, the proportion of those who did not wish to answer was 25%.

As regards their approach to the Alternative for Germany (AfD), respondents showed little support for the so-called ‘firewall’ – the principle under which many parties reject any cooperation with the AfD.

Almost one in two people (46%) no longer consider the ‘firewall’ an appropriate policy, while the proportion supporting it is one in three (34%).

Source: AGERPRES