Merkel's conservatives brace for state poll setback in election year

German Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservatives could be heading for a debacle in two state polls on Sunday, as Germany kicks off a year of elections that will eventually see Merkel leave the role she assumed more than 15 years ago.
Polling stations opened early in
the morning in the south-western German states of Baden Wuerttemberg and
Rhineland-Palatinate for two regional elections that could help to determine
who will be Chancellor Angela Merkel's successor later this year.
Recent polls show the conservative
Christian Democrats (CDU) badly trailing the governing Green Party in
Baden-Wuerttemberg.
The centre-left Social Democrats
(SPD) have been gaining ground in the Rhineland-Palatinate, raising the
prospects of the state's popular SPD premier, Malu Dreyer, returning to power
as head of a three-party coalition.
The states' elections are expected
to help answer what German media refer to as the "K-Frage" (K for
Kanzler, or chancellor): who will succeed Merkel?
Her CDU and their Bavarian-based
allies, the Christian Social Union (CSU), are due to decide later this month on
their joint candidate for the September election. And with the CDU/CSU far
ahead in national polls, whoever wins that vote is in pole position to be the
next German leader.
So far Armin Laschet, the newly
elected CDU party head and premier of Germany's most populous state, North
Rhine Westphalia, along with Bavarian state premier and CSU party chief Markus
Soeder have emerged as the two likely contenders.
Laschet needs the CDU to turn in a
convincing performance in Sunday's elections to help curb Soeder's chances of
winning the coveted title of "chancellor-candidate."
There's unlikely to be good news
from the south-west, however. Recent polls show the CDU badly trailing the
governing Green Party in Baden-Wuerttemberg, where veteran Winfried Kretschmann
is making a bid for a third term in office. Kretschmann surged to power in the
state in 2011 in the wake of Japan's Fukushima nuclear disaster.
The conservatives' problems were exacerbated this week by the resignation of two Bundestag lawmakers, who were said to have earned hefty commissions through brokering procurement deals for anti-coronavirus masks, and the resignation of another CDU parliamentarian over lobbying claims.