Poll shows Merkel could win a majority

Germany Chancellor Angela Merkel’s leadership during the Greece crisis has given her conservatives a chance of winning an absolute majority if an election were held next week, an opinion poll yesterday showed.

The results of the poll came a day after Der Spiegel news magazine said in an unsourced report that Merkel had decided to run for a fourth term and had started planning her 2017 re-election campaign.

The chancellor has ruled Germany since 2005 and now governs in coalition with the Social Democrats (SPD). since Konrad Adenauer’s third term ended in 1961 the CDU/CSU had an absolute majority.

The Emnid poll for weekly newspaper Bild am Sonntag put support for Merkel’s Christian Democrats (CDU) and sister party, the Bavarian Christian Social Union (CSU), at 43 percent.

The survey of 1,860 people showed that for the first time since June 2005 support for the CDU/CSU was equal to that of all other parties .