Germany is heading towards a complicated coalition-building process, election polls show.
The conservative bloc, led by Friedrich Merz, has consistently led in the polls for months.
By Sarah Marsh and Andreas Rinke
BERLIN (Reuters) - Germany's main parties have lost support, while the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) has gained ground in one of the last polls before Sunday's election, projecting a complicated process for forming a governing coalition that could drag on for months.
The election comes at a difficult time, leaving a leadership vacuum in Europe, just as it seeks to confront US President Donald Trump, whose apparent desire to distance himself from the region and strengthen ties with Russia raises questions about the solidity of the Western alliance.
The conservative CDU/CSU bloc, led by Friedrich Merz, which has consistently led in the polls for months, fell one percentage point to 29% in the Forsa poll, while the AfD gained one point, reaching 21%.
Chancellor Olaf Scholz's Social Democratic Party (SPD) fell one point to 15%, while the Green Party and the Free Democratic Party (FDP) remained stable at 13% and 5%, respectively. The Left Party rose one point to 8%.
With all parties refusing to work with the AfD in a country scarred by its Nazi past, the latest polls suggest it will be nearly impossible for any of the other parties to form a majority.
Instead, Merz will likely have to form a tripartite coalition with the SPD and the Greens or with the SPD and the FDP, according to the poll, which makes negotiations even more complicated.
The negotiations could therefore take longer, leaving Scholz in an interim role, but unable to make important decisions about the future of Europe's largest economy.
This also suggests that the next coalition could be as incoherent and difficult to govern as the tripartite alliance led by Scholz, which collapsed last November after only three years in power.
Scholz's coalition was the first tripartite coalition of its kind in decades at the national level, but these coalitions are expected to become more frequent due to the rise of the AfD and the decline of the old major parties.
Still, the tone of the campaign softened last week, in a sign that the parties are preparing the way for negotiations.
