Excerpt:
Divisions in German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservative bloc have weakened public support for her “grand coalition” and pushed the anti-immigrant Alternative for Germany (AfD) party to its highest ratings, a poll published on Sunday showed.
The poll conducted by Emnid for the Bild am Sonntag newspaper showed Merkel’s bloc at 31 percent, down two percentage points from the previous poll. The AfD added one percentage point to reach 16 percent, its highest rating in an Emnid poll.
The center-left Social Democrats, junior partner in the ruling coalition, remained unchanged at 18 percent.
Merkel’s conservatives are embroiled in an internal dispute over whether to turn back migrants at the German border who have registered elsewhere in the European Union.