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PREVIEW-Merkel's CDU faces another regional election setback

Thu, 15 Sep 2011 03:00 GMT

Source: reuters // Reuters

* Merkel faces poll defeat as euro zone crisis worsens

* Berlin mayor Wowereit expected to win re-election

* Greens' surge stopped by charismatic mayor

By Erik Kirschbaum

BERLIN, Sept 15 (Reuters) - Germany's Social Democrats are poised to inflict more regional election humiliaton on Chancellor Angela Merkel's beleaguered conservatives by winning Sunday's vote in the city-state of Berlin, capping a year of victories for the centre left.

Merkel, under fire for her hesitant leadership in the euro zone crisis, is halfway through a four-year term but election setbacks for her Christian Democrats (CDU) have weakened her ahead of a critical vote on euro zone measures in parliament at the end of September.

The SPD, in opposition at the national level since 2009, want their likely reelection in Berlin on Sunday to build up momentum to oust Merkel in the next federal election in 2013.

The SPD has ousted or helped defeat the CDU in Hamburg and Baden-Wuerttemberg this year and remained in power elsewhere.

The CDU has lost five of six regional votes. A bad result in Berlin, Germany's largest city with 3.4 million people, would add to Merkel's woes ahead of a vote in the Bundestag on Sept. 29 to give the European Financial Stability Fund (EFSF) more powers.

The euro crisis has crept into the campaign in Berlin, with Merkel using a local radio interview ostensibly on city issues to quash talk of an imminent Greek default.

Klaus Wowereit of the SPD, Berlin's charismatic openly gay mayor, should be re-elected for a third term after breaking open what appeared to be a tight battle against the environmentalist Greens party with a strong finishing kick.

A thumping victory could bolster Wowereit's credentials as the darling of the SPD's left and make him a candidate to run against Merkel in 2013. So far former finance minister Peer Steinbrueck, on the SPD's right, has seemed the front runner.

"Our good results in regional votes this year show we're on the right path to being the strongest party in the next national elections in 2013," said Wowereit, 57. He plays down talk of his candidacy while saying it is an honour to be considered.

Opinion polls are forecasting the SPD will win with 32 percent in Berlin on Sunday, with the Greens at about 22 percent -- well over the 13.1 percent they took in the 2006 election.

The CDU are forecast to get 22 percent as well, while the former communist Left -- Wowereit's current partners in the city administration -- are expected to win 11 percent.

A spate of apparently random night-time arson attacks on cars in Berlin, with more than 530 set alight, gave the CDU a chance to attack Wowereit's record on crime-fighting.

But Wowereit's distinctive Berlin accent, charismatic smile and popular touch, exploited in strikingly-photographed posters, have lifted his party in polls.

One of the posters shows a toddler with an impish smile trying to bite off Wowereit's nose with her glove puppet.

Wowereit has ruled in coalition with the Left for 10 years but could switch allegiance to the Greens. He has all but ruled out a coalition with the CDU, which long ran the capital but has been in disarray at the local level there for the last decade.

"We've had 10 good years with the Left and I'm proud of that," said Wowereit, who broke a taboo in German politics by teaming up with the party blamed for the Berlin Wall -- the Left are the successors to Communist East Germany's ruling SED party.

The SPD-Left coalition proved more successful than expected and made progress in cutting Berlin's obstinately high jobless rate and budget deficits. But Wowereit has flirted with the Greens, saying his party has "a lot in common" with them.

The Greens, whose popularity soared earlier this year in the wake of Japan's nuclear disaster, had hoped to beat the SPD in Berlin, after taking prosperous Baden-Wuerttemberg state from the conservatives.

With former cabinet minister Renate Kuenast as their mayoral candidate, the Greens were ahead in some polls in late 2010 and early 2011, until Wowereit managed to rally.

"If nothing else, we've succeeded in waking up Wowereit out of his deep hibernation," Kuenast told Reuters. She has revised down her goal of becoming mayor, aiming instead at displacing the Left as the SPD's coalition partner.

"Even though I'd like to see our numbers up higher where they were, I'm still sure the Greens will be much stronger than five years ago."

Berlin has among Germany's highest jobless rates at 13.3 percent and is one of the poorest regions with a fifth of residents reliant on welfare. The city has 62 billion euros in debt. But low rent and a tolerant lifestyle make it a magnet for artists, writers, the film and music industries and tourists. (Reporting By Erik Kirschbaum)