STERN survey
This is how the Germans see Sahra Wagenknecht: strong leadership, understandable, close to the people
Sahra Wagenknecht at the founding congress of the “Alliance Sahra Wagenknecht” party named after her in Berlin at the end of January
© dts news agency
Party founder Sahra Wagenknecht does rather poorly in the politician rankings. However, a detailed query of their characteristics shows how strong their image is and who are their special fans.
In the current surveys, the Alliance Sahra Wagenknecht (BSW) has now overcome the five percent hurdle. The party founder has so far performed rather moderately in politician rankings. The star-Characteristics profile, which Forsa queries for top politicians at irregular intervals, now clearly shows what strengths German citizens attribute to the former parliamentary group leader of the Left.
60 percent of Germans think that Sahra Wagenknecht speaks understandably.53 percent say she has leadership skills and 49 percent say she knows what moves people. At least 43 percent consider them competent and 36 percent consider them likeable.
Wagenknecht’s rating is significantly better in the east of the country than in the west. East Germans attribute all of the qualities asked to the politician significantly more often than West Germans. In the new federal states, for example, 65 percent of citizens say that Wagenknecht knows what motivates people. In the old states it is 46 percent.
The problem with trustworthiness
As expected, the party founder has the strongest support from BSW supporters. It achieves exceptionally high values of 90 percent and more for almost all properties. But even among AfD voters, large majorities attribute the most characteristics to Wagenknecht. Around 94 percent of their own voters, but also 72 percent of AfD supporters, say that the politician knows what moves people.
However, Sahra Wagenknecht’s image also has a dark spot. Only a quarter of Germans consider the BSW founder to be trustworthy, and in the West only 21 percent. However, trustworthiness is a central criterion for the overall assessment of politicians. This could also explain the mediocre performance in the personal rankings.
Forsa survey commissioned by star and RTL Deutschland: 1002 respondents on February 8th and 9th, statistical margin of error +/- 3 percentage points