Germans Divided over Political Cooperation with Right-Wing AfD: Poll
TEHRAN (Tasnim) - Almost two-thirds of voters in Germany supported a ban on cooperation between the governing Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and the right-wing populist Alternative for Germany (AfD), according to the latest Deutschland Trend survey published by public broadcaster ARD on Friday.
The ARD survey, however, found a divide between eastern and western Germany as only 46 percent of East Germans supported a ban on cooperation compared with 68 percent of West Germans.
In contrast, 49 percent of East Germans were opposed to the ban, which was introduced by Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, leader of the conservative CDU.
The large majority of potential voters for the CDU/CSU, the Greens and other major German political parties were opposed to cooperation with the AfD.
In contrast, 93 percent of AfD supporters did not consider it necessary to rule out cooperation with their party, Xinhua news agency reported.
On Monday, Kramp-Karrenbauer and the leader of the Bavarian CSU Markus Soeder had spoken out against cooperation with the right-wing AfD.
Some CDU politicians in eastern Germany had raised the possibility of discussing possible cooperation with the AfD.
In fall, new state parliaments will be elected in Germany's federal states Brandenburg, Saxony and Thuringia, where according to recent polls, the AfD would reach similar levels of support as the CDU.
According to the ARD survey published on Friday, however, if German elections were held next Sunday, the conservative union of CDU and CSU (Christian Social Union in Bavaria) would still remain the strongest power, with 26 percent of votes.
The German Greens would be the second strongest political party with 25 percent while the Social Democrats (SPD) would win 13 percent of votes.
The right-wing populist AfD would gain 12 percent of German votes, followed by the liberal Free Democratic Party (FDP) and the Left party (Die Linke).
