BERLIN, Aug. 23 (Xinhua) -- The German Social Democrats (SPD) party has slightly narrowed the electoral gap to the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) one month before national elections, a Stern RTL Wahltrend opinion survey published on Wednesday showed.
The finding comes on the same day as a separate survey by the newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung suggests that nearly half of Germans have not yet decided for whom to cast their ballots.
The SPD measured its highest level of support in three months at 24 percent (plus one percentage point) in the most recent Stern RTL Wahltrend survey conducted regularly by the opinion research institute Forsa. The CDU/CSU were down by one percentage point, receiving the political endorsement of 38 percent of respondents.
The right-wing Alternative for Germany (AfD) party was able to sustain its level of support during the election campaign, increasing its voter share by one percentage point to a total of nine percent. The AfD was tied in third place with the Left party (Linke), which was also supported by nine percent (no change) of those polled.
The Free Democratic Party (FDP) held steady at eight percent while the Green party (Gruene) fell by one percentage point to seven percent.
In the category of whom respondents would elect directly as chancellor, Angela Merkel (CDU) continued to enjoy a comfortable lead over her rival. 50 percent (minus one percentage point) of those polled supported the incumbent German leader, compared to 23 percent (plus one percentage point) support for SPD leader and former president of the European Parliament Martin Schulz.
Merkel is seeking her fourth term as chancellor after having already held the office for eleven years. She has widely been predicted to emerge victorious for parliamentary elections scheduled for September 24.
A separate poll published in the Frankfurter Allgemein Zeitung on Wednesday raised the possibility of an unexpected upset in her campaign given the high remaining share of undecided voters.
The survey conducted by the Allensbach opinion research institute found that 46 percent of respondents still did not know whom to vote for roughly a month before the election. The figure marked the highest share of undecided voters recorded so shortly before an election in 20 years.
At the same time, the Allensbach researchers also noted that 45 percent of the respondents, more than ever since German re-unification, thought the election was already decided.
