Support waning for German Social Democrats, poll shows

Support continues to wane for Germany's centre-left Social Democrats (SPD), a poll released on Saturday showed, in a crucial election year and a day before a regional state parliament election is due to be held.

The latest INSA Sunday poll showed 15% support for the SPD, down a point since the last poll, as backing for the party remains low.

Support for the conservative bloc made up of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and its Bavaria-only sister party, the Christian Social Union (CSU) - which is in the governing coalition with the SPD - remained stable at 26%, the poll carried out for the Sunday edition of the Bild newspaper showed.

The far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) was only one percentage point lower at 25%.

Meanwhile The Left party and the Greens both garnered 11%.

The pro-business Free Democrats (FDP) reached 4%, bringing the party closer to the 5% hurdle needed to enter the Bundestag, or lower house of parliament.

The data is based on responses from 1,200 people surveyed between March 2 and 6 and asked how they would vote if federal elections were held this week.

The poll comes a day before voters in the south-western state of Baden-Württemberg elect a new state parliament.

Two weeks later, voters in Rhineland-Palatinate are due to elect a new state parliament.

Further state elections in Saxony-Anhalt, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern and Berlin follow in September.

Oopinion polls tend to reflect respondents' views only at the time of the survey, rather than predicting election outcomes. Polls are often unreliable due to declining party loyalty and people making increasingly short-term voting decisions, making it difficult for research institutes to draw reliable conclusions from the data gathered.