BERLIN: Polls opened in the German state of Saarland on Sunday in the first of a trio of state elections that could banish Angela Merkel's junior coalition partners from regional parliaments, weakening her centre-right government ahead of next year's federal vote.
The Christian Democrat (CDU) chancellor plans to seek a third term in 2013, but will almost certainly be forced to find an alternative partner to the liberal Free Democrats (FDP), who languish at just 4 percent in national polls after a record 14.6 percent showing at the last national election in 2009.
The CDU are running neck-and-neck with their main rivals, the Social Democrats (SPD), inSaarland, one ofGermany's smallest states with just 1 million inhabitants.
The most likely outcome is a "grand coalition" government of the two broadly centrist parties a result which could be a harbinger of the outcome in next year's federal election.
First results of theSaarlandpoll are due at 1600 GMT.
The snap vote in the scenic state on the French border was triggered by parochial infighting in the FDP, which brought down the fragile alliance of CDU, Greens and FDP that had governed for the past two years.
The CDU and SPD both scored 34 percent in the latest survey inSaarland, which as seen its traditional heavy industry and mining replaced by automobile plants and light manufacturing.
It is also the home of leftist leader and former German finance minister Oskar Lafontaine, whose Left party could score 15 percent. The FDP meanwhile are seen at just 2 percent, well below the 5 percent threshold required to win assembly seats.
The campaign inSaarland, which formally became part of then-WestGermanyonly in 1957 after a debate on whether it should joinFrance, has focused on local issues like the renewal of state infrastructure and overspending on a new gallery in the regional capital Saarbruecken.
But the contest could set the tone for two crucial regional votes in May in Schleswig-Holstein on May 6 and North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW),Germany's most populous state, on May 13.
All three will lay the ground for the national vote next year, offering clues about Merkel's re-election chances and the kind of coalition that will rule inBerlinfrom 2013.
With 18 million people, NRW is larger than many European countries and its elections have had a destabilising effect on national politics in recent years. The ousting of the CDU state premier in NRW in 2010 lost Merkel her majority in the upper house of parliament, making it difficult to pass legislation.
Five years earlier, a humiliating loss for the SPD in NRW, whose big cities and heavy industry had made it a centre-left stronghold for decades, prompted Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder to call early national elections, which hoisted Merkel into power.
A fresh national opinion poll published by Emnid on Sunday saw the CDU remaining the most popular party with 35 percent of the vote, the SPD strengthening by one point to 28 percent, the Greens at 15 percent, the Left party and the anti-establishment Pirate party both at 7 percent, and the FDP at 4 percent.
A general feeling has developed inGermanythat little distinguishes the policies of two biggest parties.
The FDP's young leader, Philipp Roesler, told the Hamburger Abendblatt newspaper in remarks sure to anger Merkel that the CDU was a "social democratic party" forming an ever thicker "mish-mash" with the SPD.
Relations between the coalition partners have been highly strained since the FDP supported the centre-left's choice for German president last month, Joachim Gauck.
If the FDP is ejected from the local assemblies inSaarland, Schleswig-Holstein and NRW, party insiders say that Roesler also Merkel's economy minister would be forced to resign. The FDP failed to secure seats in five state assemblies last year.
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