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.