Nearly half of Germans expect Chancellor Friedrich Merz to be replaced by the end of the year, according to a YouGov survey, cited by DPA, BTA reports.
According to the poll, 48% of the 1,611 Germans surveyed expect Merz to be out of office by the end of the year, while 31% believe he will stay in office. 21% of those polled did not answer this question.
Merz, whose approval ratings have plummeted in recent months, could face another humiliation at the polls on Sunday when two eastern states vote in local elections - two weeks after the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) won a landslide victory in Saxony-Anhalt, DPA notes.
The vote in Saxony-Anhalt, where the AfD won with nearly 44% of the vote while Merz's Christian Democratic Union (CDU) collapsed to 17%, has sparked serious speculation that the chancellor could be forced to resign.
The latest polls suggest that the CDU can expect around 7% support in the state of Mecklenburg-Lower Pomerania - dangerously close to the five percent threshold for securing seats in the local parliament. If this result is confirmed in the elections, it would be the party's worst result in any of Germany's 16 states and at the national level since World War II.
Meanwhile, the center-left German Social Democratic Party (SPD) has overtaken the AfD in that state, according to the latest polls, just three days before the vote.
Support for the current state premier and SPD candidate Manuela Schwesig has risen by three percentage points since last week to 37 percent, while for the AfD's leading candidate, Leif-Erik Holm, has fallen by one percentage point to 36 percent.
In Berlin, the “Left” have a small lead over the CDU, putting the conservatives at risk of losing the mayoralty of the German capital, polls show.
However, Merz has done his best to downplay speculation about his future, stressing after the Saxony-Anhalt election that “giving up is not an option for him“.