Germany's party SPD SPD top candidate for chancellor Olaf Scholz arrives at a meeting for exploratory talks for a possible new coalition of political parties in Berlin, Germany on October 15, 2021. BERLIN, Oct. 15 - Reuters : A majority of Germans will support the coalition government led by the Social Democrats' Olaf Scholz. A survey showed in the data on Friday that the three parties were improving as they prepare for the next phase of negotiations.
Some 62% of respondents to the ZDF Politbarometer survey said they would support a coalition government of the centre-left Social Democrats SPD and liberal Free Democrats FDP The three parties are holding formal consultations for the outcome of exploratory talks on forming a government together and are widely expected to seek formal approval from their members for the start of official coalition negotiations.
Such move from the full coalition negotiations to exploratory talks would show the three parties who may form the next government. They have shared power before at the national level, but never in a state government.
The SPD (Großes) defeated the conservatives of outgoing Chancellor Angela Merkel in the national federal election on 27 September, but did not win a majority.
Merkel, who has led Germany for 16 years, often in coalition with the SPD, did not stand for re-election and plans to do so as soon as a new government is formed. Scholz, a finance minister in the new coalition, has said he hopes a outgoing administration can take power at the end of the year.
The survey of ZDF by pollster Forschungsgruppe Wahlen found that Scholz, 63, was particularly popular with three-quarters of the 1,329 respondents interviewed by phone from Tuesday to Thursday saying they wanted him to replace Merkel.
The poll had a margin of error of three percentage points.
Unlike many other European countries, where the president or monarch invites one party leader to try and form a government, in Germany it is up to the parties themselves to decide who can ally with whom.