Almost Half of Germans Wants Merkel to Step Down Before 2021 Election - Poll

MOSCOW (Sputnik) - Only 36 percent Germans want to see Angela Merkel staying in office for the full four-year term if she is re-elected chancellor following the coalition talks, a fresh poll conducted by YouGov revealed Wednesday.

According to the YouGov poll published by the Welt newspaper, almost every second German, or 47 percent, wants Merkel to step down before the next election in 2021.

The poll shows a decline in support for Merkel given that in early October 44 percent wanted her to keep the job for four years.

Earlier in the month, Martin Schulz, the SPD leader, said that the party's leadership had agreed to start preliminary talks with the CDU/CSU alliance on forming a coalition government.

German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier offered the CDU/CSU and the SPD to launch coalition talks after the failure of negotiations for the "Jamaica coalition." The two largest German parties accepted the initiative.

Following the election, the German Free Democratic Party (FDP) announced its withdrawal from coalition talks with the union of the CDU/CSU and the Greens (prospective 'Jamaica coalition'). 

Germany held a parliamentary election on September 24. The CDU/CSU alliance won the election with 33 percent of votes and secured 246 seats in the parliament, while the SPD, came second with 20.5 percent of votes, which is equivalent to 153 seats in the Bundestag.