New survey
Devastating half-time results for the traffic lights – Olaf Scholz, the most incompetent
Does only prayer help? 73 percent consider Olaf Scholz to be unsuitable for the Chancellery.
© Florian Gaertner / Imago Images
A new survey shows a dramatic loss of trust in traffic lights. Most cabinet members are rated as unsuitable for their office – especially Chancellor Olaf Scholz himself. However, there are some exceptions.
Half time! The government made up of the SPD, Greens and FDP has been in office for almost two years. In view of an unresolved budget situation and plenty of traffic light disputes, the mood is already bad. But now the Chancellor’s cabinet missed a survey Olaf Scholz (SPD) delivered an additional blow shortly before Christmas. The latest forsa survey commissioned by RTL/ntv gives the government a devastating half-time report.
The majority of those surveyed believe that the majority of the cabinet is not suitable for government office. The most incompetent? Of all people, the Chancellor himself. Only 19 percent agree with the statement that Scholz is suitable for his office. 73 percent disagree. If you subtract the voices that consider him “not suitable” from those who consider him “suitable”, Scholz ends up with a catastrophic competence score of -54 points.
Ten of his ministers are also considered “not suitable” by more respondents. Two other SPD members take second and third place in the negative balance: Interior Minister Nancy Faeser and Construction Minister Klara Geywitz have -48 and -42 points respectively.
Defense Minister Pistorius is rated best
This is followed by FDP Transport Minister Volker Wissing (-39), FDP Education Minister Bettina Stark-Watzinger (-33), the Green Environment Minister Steffi Lemke (-23) and her party colleague, Family Minister Lisa Paus (-22). Three of the most prominent cabinet members, Finance Minister Christian Lindner (FDP, -14), Vice Chancellor Robert Habeck (Greens, -14) and Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock (Greens, -9) are also rated as unsuitable by the majority of those surveyed.
After all, every government party can point to at least one minister who is rated as capable. For the Greens it is Agriculture Minister Cem Özdemir (+13), for the FDP it is Justice Minister Marco Buschmann (+5). The SPD even has four: Health Minister Karl Lauterbach (+2), the head of the Chancellery Wolfgang Schmidt (+12) and Labor Minister Hubertus Heil (+15). The shooting star is Boris Pistorius with +59 points. 75 percent of those surveyed said that the Defense Minister, who was only sworn in at the beginning of the year, is able to fulfill his office well – he leads the list by a wide margin.
These bright spots cannot hide the fact that the survey shows one thing above all: a further dramatic loss of trust in traffic lights. With the exception of Schmidt and Buschmann, all cabinet members receive – partly clear – worse values than last year. And these previous year’s values were in almost all cases significantly worse than when the traffic light took office. Compared to the previous year, Faeser (from -8 at the end of 2022 to -48 at the end of 2023), Baerbock (from +19 to -9), Habeck (from +6 to -14), Geywitz (from -27 to -) have deteriorated the most compared to the previous year. 42) and Lindner (from -2 to -14). This excludes Pistorius and Scholz, whose values were collected for the first time this year.
The data was collected by the market and opinion research institute forsa for RTL Group Germany from December 6th to 8th, 2023. Database: 1006 respondents. Statistical margin of error: +/- 3 percentage points.