Poll shows gains for Merkel – but no majority

13 September 2005

BERLIN – A new poll Tuesday showed gains for German opposition chancellor candidate Angela Merkel but still showed her conservatives falling short of a parliamentary majority.

The Emnid poll for N24 TV gave Merkel’s Christian Democratic alliance (CDU/CSU) 42 per cent – a 1.5 percentage point gain. Together with her Free Democratic Party (FDP) ally, Merkel would have 48.5 per cent, the poll showed.

Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder’s Social Democrats (SPD) are at 33.5 per cent. Together with his Greens coalition partner, Schroeder’s bloc would win 40.5 per cent.

The new Left Party, a merger of former East Germany’s communists and a western German protest group, would win 8 per cent.

In theory, adding on the Left Party results to Schroeder’s SPD-Greens would give the Chancellor an equal poll result to Merkel’s centre-right bloc.

But Schroeder has ruled out setting up any government with the Left Party, one of whose co-leaders is a rebel former SPD leader, Oskar Lafontaine.

“It will be neck-and-neck on election day,” said N24 TV commenting on the results. Germany’s general election will be held Sunday.

The poll surveyed 2,000 voters from September 9 to 12. It has a margin of error of plus or minus 2.5 percentage points.

DPA

Subject: German news