German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and his likely successor, Friedrich Merz, promised no collaboration with the extreme right on Tuesday in speeches to parliament before national elections on February 23.
"Never, really never will we make common cause with the extreme right," Scholz said, accusing Merz of breaking his word on the issue after the Alternative for Germany (AfD) backed his migration and security motion last month, breaking a long-held taboo on cooperation with the far-right.
The AfD is polling in second place, ahead of the SPD, with Merz's CDU/CSU bloc on track to win the largest vote share.
The CDU/CSU and AfD each gained a point in the latest opinion poll by the INSA institute, landing at 30% and 22%, respectively. The SPD fell by half a percentage point to 15.5%.
All parties have ruled out forming a coalition with the AfD, meaning that talks to form a government could drag on after the elections.
"Collaborating with the AfD is out of the question for us," Merz said in response to Scholz's comments.
He blamed Scholz's three-way coalition, which fell apart in November due to a spending row, for fuelling the rise of the AfD by pursuing "left-wing politics against the discernible will of the population".
