By IRNA,
Berlin : Less than three percent of Germans support Guido Westerwelle as their country’s foreign minister, according to a survey released Tuesday by the online site of the daily Frankfurter Rundschau.
Asked whether Westerwelle was a good foreign minister, some 94.28 percent of the respondents replied ‘no’ while 3.17 percent said they did not know.
The embattled minister has faced calls to resign in the wake of his numerous controversial political statements over the past months.
The Social Democratic Party (SPD) joined the Greens and The Left party in demanding the dismissal of Westerwelle over his fierce criticism on social welfare benefits.
SPD lawmaker Iris Gleicke branded the outspoken minister a “political adventurer” who was not fit to be the nation’s top diplomat.
She accused Westerwelle of “inciting a shameless and unscrupulous campaign against the jobless and minimum wage.”
Westerwelle, who heads the junior party in the center-right government of Chancellor Angela Merkel, had lambasted state handouts for the long-term unemployed – dubbed Hartz-IV – after the Constitutional Court ruled that these needed to be reassessed.
He added boosting state welfare benefits for the long-term unemployed was basically promoting socialist ideology.
Merkel’s Christian Democrats (CDU) and the Free Democrats (FDP) led by Westerwelle are governing in a coalition which has been overshadowed by series of major political disputes, among them tax cuts, health care reforms, Afghanistan and nuclear energy.
Westerwelle’s anti-welfare remarks are viewed as a desperate attempt to lift the profile of the FDP ahead of crucial state elections in North Rhine-Westphalia, have triggered a fierce debate across the political spectrum.
The FDP leader has repeatedly defended his controversial stance on the issue.
“It was necessary to articulate what needed to be articulated,” Westerwelle was quoted saying.
The latest polls indicate the FDP has dropped to around seven percent from a record of 14.6 percent in the general elections in September.