Chancellor's party edges up poll

Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder was squaring off today with his challengers in their last debate before Germany’s election as a new poll showed his Social Democrats continuing to edge forward.

The ARD television debate pits Schroeder and his Greens party ally foreign minister Joschka Fischer against conservative Christian Democrat leader Angela Merkel and Edmund Stoiber, the head of her party’s Bavaria-only sister group, the Christian Social Union.

Guido Westerwelle, the head of the pro-business Free Democrats, and Gregor Gysi, co-leader of the new Left Party, complete the list.

Merkel hopes to form a centre-right coalition with the Free Democrats, but polls over the past week have shown them falling just short of a majority of votes. A Forsa polling agency survey carried out over the course of last week put support for the chancellor’s party at 35 per cent – up one point from last week.

The Christian Democrats and CSU were unchanged at 42 per cent, with the Free Democrats also static at 6 per cent.