Photo credit: @AfD | Twitter

Shock in Germany as the populist Alternative for Germany (AfD) has for the very first time overtaken the Social democrats in a national poll.

The stunning news comes just as Chancellor Angela Merkel is bound to get a vote from the SPD to form a coalition with her own Conservative party.

Bild, the biggest newspaper in Germany, says that the AfD would now get the backing of some 16 percent of voters (a 3% gain versus their election result of last year), whilst the Social Democrats who are negotiating a coalition government with the Conservatives of Chancellor Angela Merkel, are in a literal free fall, dropping down to 15.5% (down 4% since their election result).

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">In the past few weeks the <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/AfD?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#AfD</a> has gone from 3% behind the SPD, then 2%, then 1% and, as of today, they’re Germany’s main opposition party…in the eyes of the public at least. <a href="https://t.co/cxeqqwtCTW">https://t.co/cxeqqwtCTW</a></p>— thebrexiteer 🇬🇧 (@BrexiteerGB) <a href="https://twitter.com/BrexiteerGB/status/965728795553562624?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 19, 2018</a></blockquote>

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Germany's oldest political party, the Socialists, have seen their polling figures plummet even further since it garnered just 20.5 percent of the vote in September's federal election which was its worst result in the post-war era.

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Oops! <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Germany?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#Germany</a>'s Social Democrats (<a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/SPD?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#SPD</a>) sink to new record low. The centre-left party is now just ahead of the right-wing populist anti-immigrant Alternative for Germany (<a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/AfD?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#AfD</a>) party, which polled 15%. <a href="https://t.co/vJYZE7tWds">pic.twitter.com/vJYZE7tWds</a></p>— Holger Zschaepitz (@Schuldensuehner) <a href="https://twitter.com/Schuldensuehner/status/964416466618494976?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 16, 2018</a></blockquote>

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Bild said the result of their survey would come as "a bitter blow" for the SPD, while INSA (the company responsible for the election poll) chief Mr. Hermann Binkert claimed that his poll showed that "the conservative bloc is currently the only truly mainstream party."

Source:

https://www.bild.de/bild-plus/politik/inland/politik-inland/afd-profitiert-von-groko-gezerre-54858212,view=conversionToLogin.bild.html