Rich German state may hand Merkel damaging defeat
STUTTGART, Germany (Reuters) - Chancellor Angela Merkel's Christian Democrats face election defeat on Sunday in one of Germany's most prosperous states, an outcome that could undermine her leadership of the centre-right government.
The Social Democrats (SPD) and their likely allies, the fast-growing Greens, gained the edge over Merkel's coalition of Christian Democrats (CDU) and Free Democrats (FDP) in opinion polls before the vote in Baden-Wuerttemberg.
In another vote in neighbouring Rhineland-Palatinate, the SPD was expected to retain power with the Greens' support.
Voter turnout on a warm and mild early spring day in both states was higher than four years ago, election officials said.
The CDU, which has governed Baden-Wuerttemberg without interruption since 1953, has been hurt by Merkel's policy U-turns on nuclear power, Libya and the euro zone debt crisis.
"Our chances to win were never better," said SPD candidate Nils Schmid after casting his ballot in Baden-Wuerttemberg.
The race has turned into a referendum on Merkel.
"She no longer looks like a strong leader for her party who can get the job done," Gero Neugebauer, political scientist at Berlin's Free University, told Reuters.
Baden-Wuerttemberg, on the French and Swiss borders is known for its car industry, medieval university towns and the Black Forest. Losing it would weaken Merkel's grip on her party, which suffered a bitter state election defeat in Hamburg last month.
It would be ironic as Baden-Wuerttemberg is one of Germany's richest states with its lowest unemployment rate -- 4.7 percent.
CDU state premier Stefan Mappus warned of disorder in the southwestern state if the conservatives lose control.
"What's at stake is the future of Baden-Wuerttemberg ... We've got the lowest unemployment and highest wages in Germany," Mappus told Bild am Sonntag newspaper. "There would be chaos if the SPD and Greens win."
MERKEL'S FUTURE
Merkel's future could be clouded if the CDU loses. After her SPD predecessor as chancellor, Gerhard Schroeder, lost North Rhine-Westphalia in 2005, he called a snap election and lost.
"Merkel's standing in the party would be badly shaken if the CDU lose Baden-Wuerttemberg," Juergen Falter, political scientist at Mainz University, told Bild am Sonntag. "There will be massive criticism in the party about her leadership."
Anti-nuclear sentiment and criticism of Merkel's confused stance have become big issues in a state where environmentalists were already mobilised by opposition to a major infrastructure programme in the state capital, a railway project in Stuttgart.
After extending the life-spans of Germany's 17 nuclear power plants late last year, Merkel's government shut down seven plants immediately after Japan's nuclear emergency broke out.
About 200,000 people demonstrated across Germany on Saturday calling for all nuclear plants to be shut.
The ARD TV network predicted a high voter turnout in Baden-Wuerttemberg as surveys showed interest in the election surging after the Japanese disaster. Turnout fell to a post-war low of 53.4 percent in 2006 but may now hit 70 percent, it said.
Late polls showed the SPD and Greens leading the CDU and FDP by 48 to 43 percent, with a high proportion of undecided voters -- as much as 40 percent -- seen boosting the Greens, who could even secure a German state premiership for the first time.
"If people vote under the influence of the nuclear debate, that pushes them towards the Greens, especially if they're not clearly predisposed to any party," said Thorsten Faas, professor of politics at Mannheim University in Baden-Wuerttemberg.
The euro zone crisis has not figured high in the campaign, despite Merkel's efforts to be seen as a defender of the German taxpayer by seeking strict conditions for bailouts. She has been criticised for ceding too much ground in the euro crisis.
Merkel has been chided in some media for isolating Germany within NATO by abstaining in a U.N. Security Council vote on military action over Libya. But a poll for Focus magazine suggested 56 percent supported her position.
(Writing by Erik Kirschbaum and Stephen Brown; editing by Mark Heinrich)