Friedrich Merz, who was an extremely vocal critic of Germany’s previous chancellor Olaf Scholz, has become the world’s most unpopular democratic leader, according to a recent survey.
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz has earned the unappealing title of the world’s most unpopular leader, according to a recent poll.
A survey by the US-based opinion research institute Morning Consult compared the popularity of the heads of state of 24 democracies around the world. Adults in the respective countries were asked if they supported or opposed the head of state of their own country’s government.
The survey, first reported by Euronews, found that Merz was the most unpopular leader of them all, with 76 percent of German citizens polled dissatisfied with his performance as chancellor.
Just 19 percent of those surveyed said they were satisfied with Merz’s efforts as chancellor, and the remaining few said they ‘didn’t know’ or ‘had no opinion’.
Merz’s unpopularity with German voters has been clear for some time.
At the end of October last year, German media outlets reported a Forsa poll on behalf of RTL that produced similar results. At that time, Welt reported that only one in four people were satisfied with the chancellor’s work.
The most recent Forsa survey on the topic, based on survey answers from 1,503 people in Germany collected between March 31st and April 2nd, found that 78 percent of respondents were dissatisfied with Merz.
Why is Merz so unpopular?
Merz’s political track record was not popular with many segments of the German population even before he stepped up to Germany’s highest position of political power.
Forsa boss, Manfred Güllner, told Euronews that Merz was “one of the most unpopular political actors in Germany during his first time as an active politician in the early 2000s.”
He added that “especially among women, young voters and East Germans,” voters held “massive reservations”.
Now, coming up on one year since Merz officially became Germany’s chancellor, it appears that frustration with his leadership has only grown.
He had led his conservative party of Christian Democrats (CDU) to election victory with a campaign primarily focused on promises to get the German economy up and running again after several years of stagnation.
Confronted by tariff struggles with the US under President Donald Trump, that has proven difficult to do, and now, given an escalating fuel crisis caused by the US-Israel war against Iran, it looks like the German economy has even greater challenges ahead.
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Meanwhile, Merz has become the figure-head pushing forward a number of reforms to taxes and social benefits that he and his cabinet suggest will help Germany balance its books.
But opposition party leaders have attacked many of these reforms as basically amounting to austerity measures, likely to put higher burdens on middle- and low-income voters.
READ ALSO: Higher co-pays, fewer services – The cuts coming for Germany’s public health insurance
On top of the above, Merz has insisted that Germany’s far-right is his primary political opponent but often seems to echo its approach. He has tightened the country’s immigration policy and been called out repeatedly for invoking populist rhetoric by casting blame on immigrants for the country’s problems.
How Merz compares
Friedrich Merz’s shockingly low popularity ranking puts him far below other contentious world leaders including Trump, who has a 57 percent disapproval rating (and a 38 percent approval rating) in the same survey.
Merz was also significantly outranked by Turkish ruler Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, who received a 50 percent disapproval rating (and a 36 percent approval rating).
Nearly tied with Merz for the title of most unpopular world leader was French President Emmanuel Macron. Seventy-five percent of survey respondents in France rejected the president (one percent less than Merz), but he also received less positive support (at 18 percent) than the German chancellor.
The world leaders with the highest approval ratings were Indian President Narendra Modi (70 percent approval), and South Korean President Lee Jae-myung (63 percent approval).
OPINION: Merz really needs to talk Germany up or he’ll hand the country to extremists
Disclaimer : This story is auto aggregated by a computer programme and has not been created or edited by DOWNTHENEWS. Publisher: thelocal.de
