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ARD-DeutschlandTREND
January 2012
I regard Wulff‘s behaviour in the interview as…
Statements on the Federal President
Federal President Wulff is…
Federal President Wulff should…
This party is credible.
Vote intention
Click enlarge »The affair concerning the Federal President is still dominating the political agenda at the beginning of the year. In the first days of the New Year, Christian Wulff considerably lost support. While on Monday 63 percent of the Germans wanted him to stay in office, the number of his supporters decreased prior to his TV-Interview on Wednesday to 47 percent.
While the Federal President significantly lost sympathy since Christmas, three politicians of the Christian Democrats clearly improved their reputation: The Chancellor (+9), the minister of finance (+8) and the minister of defence (+7). Angela Merkel, Thomas de Maizière and Wolfgang Schäuble are ranked best by German citizens with 63 percent – for Angela Merkels the best rating since December 2009. The popularity of Angela Merkel is also reflected in the Chancellor preference: regardless which politician of the Social Democrats would be her challenger in a direct election the incumbent is currently preferred.
The turbulences regarding the Federal President didn’t affect the political mood in Germany. If the Germans had to vote next Sunday, the Union could expect 35 percent and would remain the strongest party as in December. Unchanged to the previous month, the Social Democrats would start with 30 percent in the New Year, the Greens with 16 percent and the Pirates with 6 percent. Only 2 percent of citizens would currently vote for the smaller coalition partner, the Liberals – a record low in the ARD-DeutschlandTREND. The Left would achieve 6 percent.
With respect to the economic development, expectations are somewhat more subdued than before. One fifth of Germans expects that the positive trend will continue in the course of the year. In March last year every third expected an improvement for the upcoming year. Four out of ten citizens currently expect a constant economic level in 2012. Consequently, Euro-Crisis and risks of economical cycle damped expectations somewhat, but still a majority of 62 percent assumes that the level of the last months will at least be kept. The current economic situation is still assessed very positive and rated at a level not seen in many years: 72 percent judge the current economic situation as very good or good.
These are the main results of the ARD-DeutschlandTREND in January, conducted by Infratest dimap on behalf of ARD-Tagesthemen and two daily newspapers. In a representative survey among eligible voters in Germany 1,000 persons were questioned by telephone January 02 to January 04, for the vote intention question 1,500 persons were interviewed. The survey design allows for generalization of results to the German voting population with an error margin of 1.4 to 3.1 percentage points.
Voting intention: 1.500 Respondents
Voting intention: January, 2nd-4th 2012
* at a share of 5%
** at a share of 50%
