As institutions, the Chancellor and the Federal Government are losing a great deal of trust among Germans. In the course of the year, the trust ranking for them has fallen by 24 and 22 percentage points, and for the office of chancellor it has halved compared to two years ago.
Trust in ten important political institutions fell sharply in the course of 2022 compared to the previous year. This is shown by the RTL/ntv trend barometer in its survey at the turn of the year. The Federal Chancellor and the Federal Government lost the most trust with a dramatic drop of 24 and 22 percentage points. For more than 15 years, Forsa pollsters have been surveying trust levels in the same ten institutions.
There was also a decline of more than ten percentage points in the Bundestag, Federal President and mayor. At the turn of the year 2022/23, the state governments, the municipal councils and the city and municipal administrations each recorded a 9 percentage point lower level of trust. The decline in trust is somewhat smaller at 7 percentage points each in the European Union and in the political parties.
At the turn of the year 2022/23 – as in all previous years – the Federal President has the greatest trust among the political institutions. 63 percent of Germans have great trust in him. At the end of 2022, state and municipal institutions will follow at a considerable distance: state governments with 46, mayors or mayors with 44, municipal councils and city or municipal administrations with 43 percent each.
Unlike during the Corona crisis, the institutions at the federal level only follow afterwards: Only 37 percent of German citizens still have great trust in the Bundestag, only 34 in the Federal Government and only 33 percent in the Federal Chancellor. A comparison with the trust value that Angela Merkel had received at the turn of the year 2020/21 at the height of the Corona wave at that time shows how drastically trust in the institution “Chancellor” has fallen: At that time, 75 percent had great trust in the institution “Chancellor”. .
31 percent still have great trust in the European Union and 17 percent in political parties. At the turn of the year 2022/23, trust in political institutions in the new and old federal states also differed. With the exception of institutions at the local level, East Germans have less trust in other political institutions than West Germans. The lower level of trust among East Germans is largely due to the fact that the number of AfD supporters in the new federal states is significantly higher than in the old federal states. The AfD supporters despise almost all institutions of the democratic political system of the Federal Republic rather than respect them.
However, there are also clear differences in the degree of trust in political institutions between the supporters of the individual parties. For example, supporters of the SPD have in some cases significantly more trust in most political institutions than supporters of the CDU and CSU. This difference in trust is particularly large in the political institutions at federal level (chancellor, federal government, but also Bundestag). Only in Bavaria is it different. CSU supporters there have significantly more trust in state and local politics than SPD or CDU supporters elsewhere.
As in previous years, supporters of the far-right AfD have by far the least trust in all political institutions. Only 2 or 3 out of 100 AfD supporters trust the chancellor, the federal government, the Bundestag or the European Union. However, there are also differences in the degree of trust between the supporters of the three parties that currently form the federal government. The supporters of the Greens and the FDP have less trust than the supporters of the third “traffic light” party, the SPD, especially in the chancellor, in the federal government supported by “their” parties and also in the Bundestag.
The data was collected by the market and opinion research institute Forsa on behalf of RTL Germany from December 15 to 22, 2022. Database: 4003 respondents.
More information about Forsa here
Forsa surveys commissioned by RTL Germany
