New Delhi, July 5 -- she expects the next Bundestag election in 2027, two years before the scheduled 2029 vote.

"I think that the Bundestag elections will not take place in 2029, but significantly earlier. I expect early elections already next year," Weidel told the Phoenix channel from the congress floor in Erfurt.

The polling data behind that prediction is not easy to dismiss. A YouGov flash survey published on June 16 placed support for the CDU/CSU conservative bloc at 20 percent, close to a five-year low. Separately, an INSA study commissioned by Bild in early May found that only 24 percent of Germans believe the CDU/CSU-SPD coalition will last until 2029. Fifty-eight percent expect it to collapse beforehand.

Those numbers do not t...