BERLIN, October 27. . German Prime Minister Friedrich Merz (CDU), amid controversial statements on the migration issue, has dropped to the penultimate position in the ranking of Germany's 20 most popular politicians. This is proven by the results of a survey conducted by the INSA sociological institute commissioned by Bild newspaper.
According to him, Merz has moved from 13th to 19th place in the list of the most popular politicians in Germany, his rating is only 35.2%. German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius (SPD) still leads with 51.2% of the votes. The second position is occupied by Bavarian Prime Minister, CSU leader Markus Söder (42.1%).
In third place with 40.8% of the vote is North Rhine-Westphalia Prime Minister Hendrik Wüst (CDU). Alternative for Germany (AfD) party co-chair Alice Weidel rose to 9th place (37.7%).
In the popularity ranking of political forces in Germany, “Alternative for Germany” still leads with 26% of the votes (minus 1 pp). Next is the conservative bloc of the Christian Social and Christian Democratic Union (CDU/CSU) with 24.5% (unchanged). The Social Democratic Party was supported by 15% of respondents (plus 1 percentage point), the Green Party – 11% (no change), the Left Party – 11.5% (plus 0.5 percentage points). The remaining parties received less than 5% of the votes.
The survey was conducted from October 24 to 27. 2,004 people participated.
On October 14, the German Chancellor said German authorities were correcting previous mistakes in migration policy and had “made great progress in (solving the) migration problem.” However, according to him, “in German cities this problem still exists”. On October 20, the Prime Minister refused to answer the question of what exactly he meant, but advised those who asked it to turn to their daughters to receive, as he declared, “a fairly clear and unambiguous answer”. Merz's remarks drew condemnation and criticism from both politicians and the public. Many considered his words “racist and discriminatory,” and protests took place in several German cities.
