Merkel's party shows early lead in exit polls

Exit polls showed conservative challenger Angela Merkel’s party in the lead and Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder’s seven-year-old government voted out, as Germans today chose between different visions of their country’s role in the world and how to fix its sputtering economy.

The exit poll from ZDF public television showed Merkel’s Christian Democrats at 37%, worse than expected and uncertain of winning a majority with her preferred coalition partners, the pro-business Free Democrats.