Seeking re-election
July 10, 2011
Angela Merkel on Sunday declared her intention to run for chancellor again in 2013, shrugging off poor reviews in Germany's most recent opinion polls.
In an interview with weekend TV magazine Sat. 1, Merkel said she "wasn't really worried" about being behind her main rivals in the Social Democratic Party (SPD), former Finance Minister Peer Steinbrück and current SPD parliamentary chairman Frank-Walter Steinmeier.
"All of [the opposing candidates] in the public discussion are known to me," she said. "In that respect, we're just going to wait and see."
The most recent poll by public broadcaster ARD found that Steinbrück would take 48 percent of voter support to Merkel's 37 if the chancellor were elected by a direct vote. Steinmeier, who served as vice chancellor and foreign minister with Merkel in a "grand coalition" of their parties, had 43 percent support to Merkel's 39 percent.
Waning coalition support
The poll also confirmed the drop in support for the governing coalition of Merkel's Christian Democratic Union (CDU), it's Bavarian sister party, the Christian Social Union (CSU) and the pro-business Free Democratic Party (FDP). Support for the coalition totaled 37 percent, while the SPD and Greens totaled 49 percent.
CSU chairman Horst Seehofer dismissed the polls as insignificant more than two years away from the next general elections.
"Ms. Merkel is totally unchallenged," he told the Saturday edition of the daily Mitteldeutsche Zeitung. "She had the absolute support of the CSU."
Merkel did fare better in eastern Germany, where she was born and raised. There she attained 46 percent of direct voter support against Steinmeier, who got 36 percent, according to a poll conducted by the Leipzig Institute for Market Research and published Sunday by the magazine Super Illu. She got 49 percent of support against Steinbrück's 30 percent.
SPD chairman Sigmar Gabriel said he was bothered by the media hype surrounding Steinbrück, calling it a "substitute" for the plagiarism scandal that brought down former Defense Minister Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg. He told the daily Passauer Neue Presse that any popular and trustworthy Social Democratic candidate would please him.
Author: Andrew Bowen (Reuters, dapd)
Editor: Martin Kuebler