BERLIN, Oct. 12 (Xinhua) -- Voter support for the German ruling "grand coalition" parties has fallen to its lowest ever level, according to the latest DeutschlandTrend survey published on Thursday night by public broadcaster ARD.
If German elections were held next Sunday, the CDU/CSU conservative alliance would only receive a combined 26 percent of votes, marking a 3-percentage-point decline compared to the September DeutschlandTrend poll and the worst ever rating recorded by the two conservative sister parties.
By contrast, the Greens (Gruene) achieved their best result since May 2017 with 17 percent (plus three percentage points) and would now come in second place in a nationwide ballot, according to the survey.
The far-right party AfD followed in third place with 16 percent (unchanged), ahead of the German Social Democrats (SPD) with 15 percent of votes (minus three percentage point) and the Free Democratic Party (FDP) with 10 percent (plus two percentage points) and Left party with 10 percent (unchanged).
As held true for the CDU/CSU, the SPD's rating was its worst so-far in a DeutschlandTrend poll.
The findings were based on a regular and representative survey which has been conducted for ARD by the Infratest dimap institute since 1997.
According to the poll, only every fourth voter in Germany believes that the Berlin government is doing a good job. Some 24 percent of respondents indicated that they were either content or very content with the work of Chancellor Angela Merkel's fourth governing cabinet, compared to 76 percent who said there were less content or not content at all.
When asked to rate the "grand coalition" parties individually, the CDU, CSU and SPD all appeared to have suffered from recent cabinet infighting.
Only 28 percent (minus eight percentage points) were content or very content with the work of the CDU, while 27 percent (minus 11 percentage points) and 17 percent (minus three percentage points) of respondents approved of the record for the SPD and CSU respectively.
Most voters identified Merkel as being principally responsible for the state of the government (56 percent). A further 31 percent blamed interior minister and CSU leader Horst Seehofer for the situation and two percent pointed to SPD leader Andrea Nahles as the main culprit.
Questioned on specific policy areas, the DeutschlandTrend poll revealed growing frustration among voters over the climate policies of the government.
In the wake of the latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report, 73 percent of respondents indicated that they were unhappy with the legislation of the "grand coalition" in this context.
Germans also had a unfavorable view of asylum and refugee policy (68 percent) and the pensions- and social policy (68 percent) of the federal government. By contrast, 59 percent of respondents said they were content with Berlin's economic policies.
