WITH A smile and a shrug, chancellor Angela Merkel headed off on holidays yesterday with unhappy strand reading in her suitcase: a magazine poll giving her government a record low of just 34 per cent support.
At a pre-holiday briefing in Berlin however, Dr Merkel decided to accentuate the positive – economic growth and a drop in the jobless rate – and insisted her 10 month-old coalition was finally getting down to work after an admittedly “bumpy start”.
“I’m optimistic we’ll make it,” said a relaxed Dr Merkel, sporting a white blazer and a new summer hairdo. “The coalition has pulled itself together a bit now, though I can’t promise there won’t be any more discussions.”
Since taking office, ministers from her Christian Democratic Union (CDU) have disagreed loudly on almost everything with their liberal Free Democrat (FDP) coalition partners. By “discussions”, Dr Merkel was making a euphemistic reference to the bad-tempered rows and public name calling, including “Rumpelstiltskin”, “wild boar” and something unpleasant involving pickles.
“Certain terms of address were not appropriate and we’re working on that,” said Dr Merkel.
In impossibly good humour, she played down a recent exodus of senior figures from the CDU and insisted she had her party and the government under control.
“The power I have is reflected in each and every word,” she said, to gales of laughter from the assembled journalists.
To calm heated tempers, Dr Merkel has fudged healthcare reform and has not decided on promised tax reform.
The political season in autumn will be a minefield, with thorny decisions looming on the future of Germany’s nuclear power plants, military conscription and welfare payment reform.
Yesterday's disastrous poll results in Sternmagazine suggest voters are not impressed by Dr Merkel's second administration, pitching the CDU at the same level of support as the opposition Social Democrats (SPD) – 31.5 per cent.
By contrast, if an election was called on Sunday, support for a SPD-Green coalition would come in at 47 per cent.
While the poll shows the SPD recovering slowly from last year’s general election disaster to 31.5 per cent, a record Green Party level of 19 per cent support is the real surprise of this morning’s Stern magazine poll, conducted by the Forsa agency.
Forsa head Manfred Güllner suggested the surge in Green support reflected voter expectation that the party will be courted by the SPD and the CDU after the next election, due in 2013.
“If anything, the CDU and SPD risk losing their identities in the process,” said Mr Güllner. “Whoever enters a coalition with the Greens will have to make sure who’s the cook and who’s the waiter.”
Another poll, by the Allensbach agency for the Frankfurter Allgemeinenewspaper, put support for the government coalition at 38 per cent and the opposition SPD-Green alternative at 41 per cent.
In the Forsa and Allensbach polls, the Left Party has 11 and 9.5 per cent support respectively.