German Elections to Test Merkel Coalition

"EU"

03/25/2006

BERLIN (AP) - Germany’s main parties ended campaigning Saturday for three state elections seen as a test of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s four-month-old government.

Merkel’s pragmatic, consensual approach and a flurry of well-received foreign trips have sent her approval ratings soaring since she took office in November.

The votes Sunday in two southern states and one in the former East Germany are the first test for Merkel’s federal-level coalition of her conservatives and predecessor Gerhard Schroeder’s Social Democrats.

Polls suggest they will retain control in all three states and that the big loser could be the Free Democrats - the largest opposition party.

Joined in a “grand coalition” at federal level, Merkel’s Christian Democrats and the Social Democrats have avoided their traditional all-out rivalry.

Campaigning in eastern Saxony-Anhalt, where unemployment tops 20 percent, Merkel argued Friday for tax breaks and reductions in red tape to encourage smaller firms to create jobs.

“Part of the paperwork belongs in the trash,” she told about 1,000 people at a rally in Dessau.

“Saxony-Anhalt cannot be governed from a rocking-chair, it needs new energy,” retorted Social Democrat Vice-Chancellor Franz Muentefering at an event in nearby Magdeburg.

Surveys suggest Merkel’s Christian Democrats might strengthen their grip on prosperous Baden-Wuerttemberg, the largest of the three states and home to firms such as DaimlerChrysler AG. (DCX)

In neighboring Rhineland-Palatinate, Social Democrat Kurt Beck is fighting to keep his party’s last major governorship in West Germany.

Merkel’s coalition is expected to face deeper strains once the voting is over when it tackles the divisive issues of reforming the public health insurance system and future energy policy.

The Social Democrats have resisted conservative suggestions that a gradual shutdown of nuclear plants be halted.