The majority of Germans have pronounced themselves critical of the fact that Armin Laschet is still entertaining ambitions of becoming chancellor after his party’s disappointing performance in the federal election. 

Armin Laschet “wrong” for attempting to form government?

According to a representative survey conducted by the Civey Institute for the Augsburger Allgemeine, a substantial majority of respondents are against the fact that Armin Laschet wants to try to form a government, despite the fact that the CDU / CSU lost votes in the election and was edged out as the largest party by the SPD. 

71 percent of Germans surveyed said they consider this to be clearly or at least partly wrong, while 22 percent of the 5.031 recipients supported Laschet’s attempts to form a government. 43 percent of those questioned said they would like SPD candidate Olaf Scholz to be the next chancellor, while only 13 percent named Laschet. 

CDU no longer largest party in German Bundestag

According to the preliminary official result, the centre-left Social Democrats (SPD) won the largest share of seats in the Bundestag in Sunday’s federal elections, taking home 25,7 percent of the vote. The conservative Christian Democrats (CDU) and their sister party in Bavaria (CSU) scored the second-highest total with 24,1 percent - down over 8 percent on the previous election. 

The Greens achieved their best-ever result, with 14,8 percent of the vote, while the pro-business Free Democrats (FDP) also gained ground. SPD chancellor candidate Olaf Scholz said that the fact that these three parties strengthened their positions, “is the clear mandate that the voters have formulated”, and added that he would try to form a coalition agreement with the Greens and the FDP by Christmas. 

However, Armin Laschet has contested this: “None of the major parties have a clear government mandate,” he said. “Only the person who manages to bring together opposites can become chancellor.” His statement likely alluded to the fact that the two kingmakers in this election, the Greens and the FDP, are not natural bedfellows, and so getting them to come together on a shared political agenda will not be an easy task. 

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