In Polls Ahead of the September 20 State Election, the CDU, the Left Party and the Afd Have Recently Alternated at the Top in Germany

Green Party lead candidate Werner Graf has ruled out a coalition involving the CDU after the Berlin state election, saying he has never hidden his preference for an alliance with the SPD and the Left Party. "I have never made a secret of my preference for an alliance with the SPD and the Left Party, nor of our wish to send the CDU into opposition, Graf told the Tagesspiegel newspaper. He cited the controversial allocation of funding for projects against antisemitism as a reason.

The Greens had accused CDU parliamentary group members of exerting improper pressure on the cultural administration to release certain funding decisions. The state audit office had described the funding of more than a dozen projects as "evidently unlawful. Graf also criticized the CDU on other grounds: "It pursues a policy of regression, destroys cycle paths instead of building new ones, and wants to extend the A100. That is not our policy," he said.

He also criticized cuts by the current CDU-led state government in culture and science. In polls ahead of the September 20 state election, the CDU, the Left Party and the AfD have recently alternated at the top. According to the latest data from the Forsa institute for the news portal t-online, published last Saturday, the Left Party leads with 22 percent, followed by the CDU and AfD with 18 percent each, the Greens with 16 percent and the SPD with 12 percent.

Two-party coalitions are therefore not possible. Arithmetically conceivable are a coalition of the CDU, Greens and SPD, and one of the Left Party, Greens and SPD. The election is for the Berlin House of Representatives (Abgeordnetenhaus).