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Germans vote amid economic issues, Islamic threats
Germans decide on Sunday whether to return the nation's first woman chancellor to a second term in office following a lackluster campaign centered largely on economic issues and a rash of last-minute threats by Islamic extremists.
- AP
- Published: 11:34 September 27, 2009
Berlin: Germans decide on Sunday whether to return the nation's first woman chancellor to a second term in office following a lackluster campaign centered largely on economic issues and a rash of last-minute threats by Islamic extremists.
Chancellor Angela Merkel is hoping enough of the nation's 62.2 million eligible voters will support her conservative Christian Democratic Party to give them a solid enough standing to form a centre-right coalition with their top partners, the Free Democrats.
One of the final surveys on Sunday indicated the conservatives could capture 33 per cent of the vote, while the Free Democrats were supported by 14 per cent in the poll by the Forsa institute.
That would give them a razor-thin lead in parliament and allow Merkel to break with her partners of the past four years, Germany's other traditional main party, the left-centre Social Democrats.
In the Forsa survey they received only 25 perc ent support from the 2,001 people questioned. The poll gave a margin of error of plus or minus 2.5 percentage points.
Among the other parties currently represented in parliament, the Greens polled at 10 per cent, just behind the Left party at 12 per cent.
Despite their predicted status as third-strongest party, both the Christian and Social Democrats have ruled out a coalition with the Left, which burst onto the political spectrum in 2005 after the ex-Communists banded together with defectors from the Social Democrats, disenchanted by their party's swing to the centre.
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