Over 81% of German voters have expressed dissatisfaction with the government’s work
A recent ARD-DeutschlandTREND survey has found that not a single German citizen is fully satisfied with their government.
The current government is a coalition of the center-left Social Democrats (SPD), led by Chancellor Olaf Scholz, the Free Democrats (FDP), and the Greens.
According to the survey, conducted from July 1st to 3rd, zero percent of Germans indicated they were “fully satisfied” with the ruling coalition’s performance, with only 19% expressing some degree of “satisfaction.”
The overall dissatisfaction rate with the government’s policies has risen to 81%, with 38% stating they were “not satisfied at all.”
Even among supporters of the coalition parties, dissatisfaction is prevalent. Half of the surveyed SPD and Green voters acknowledged being less than satisfied with the government’s performance. This trend is even more pronounced among supporters of other parties, with only 17% of Free Democratic Party (FDP) voters and 11% of Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and Christian Social Union (CSU) supporters expressing some approval of the government’s work.
A staggering 96% of voters who support the new left-wing BSW party, established by former Left Party leader Sahra Wagenknecht earlier this year, indicated dissatisfaction with the coalition government. Conversely, none of the supporters of the right-wing Alternative for Germany (AfD) party expressed any satisfaction with the government’s performance.
During the EU parliamentary elections last month, Scholz’s center-left coalition suffered a setback, placing third behind the conservatives and the AfD. This defeat prompted the opposition to call for a vote of no confidence in the government or early elections. The SPD party received only 14% of the vote, its worst result in decades.
Scholz attributed his party’s poor performance to voter disapproval of military support for Ukraine and sanctions against Russia, but maintained that “there is no alternative to changing that.”
Before the Russia-Ukraine conflict, Germany was a major consumer of relatively inexpensive Russian natural gas, which benefited the country’s industrial sector. Following the EU’s push to eliminate Russian energy imports as part of the sanctions, the German economy has experienced significant setbacks, with many energy-intensive businesses either relocating or shutting down entirely.