Merkel faces defeat in Germany's most populous state

German Chancellor Angela Merkel has drifted so far to the left, an ally in her Christian Democrats said yesterday, that it endangers the conservatives' chances of staying in power in Germany's most populous state.

Josef Schlarmann, head of the CDU business wing and a member of the party executive, said Mrs Merkel has scared away conservative voters with left-leaning policies. He said the CDU would pay a price for that in the North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW) election.

If the centre-right loses NRW, it would cost Mrs Merkel her majority in the upper house of Parliament and force her to make compromises with opposition parties. The centre-right now has 37 seats in the 69-seat Bundesrat; NRW accounts for six seats.

"Angela Merkel and her ministers have ploughed ahead in the wrong direction," Mr Schlarmann told the Hamburger Abendblatt newspaper. "The centre-right can only win the election by staying in the centre. We can't win by going left of that."

An opinion poll ahead of the May 9 vote in NRW published on Sunday showed the CDU at 38 per cent, down from the 44.8 per cent they won five years ago, with their coalition partners, the Free Democrats, at eight per cent, up from 6.2 per cent in 2005.

But the combined 46 per cent would not be enough for another centre-right coalition in Germany's largest state with a population of 18 million because three opposition parties were at a combined 51 per cent in the Forsa poll for Bild am Sonntag.

The Social Democrats were polling 32 per cent, the Greens were at 12 per cent and the Left party at seven per cent.

Mr Schlarmann, who was long a fierce critic of Mrs Merkel's drift to the left in the previous grand coalition with the SPD, attacked Mrs Merkel for introducing a minimum wage for some sectors and pushing for price controls on pharmaceutical products.

"The government is definitely not going to win over voters in North Rhine-Westphalia with more minimum wage rules or prices imposed by the state in the pharmaceutical market," Mr Schlarmann said. He also criticised her plans for a bank levy.

Mr Schlarmann said the only way the CDU can still hold power in NRW is for MrsMerkel's government to change course: "It all depends on whether the federal government will finally stops doing political things for the sake of doing something."

Michael Fuchs, deputy parliamentary floor leader in Mrs Merkel's CDU, reacted to Mr Schlarmann's criticism with a plea for unity.

"It would be helpful for us if we could just try to get along for a change and just keep the mouth shut for 35 days," Mr Fuchs told the Rheinische Post newspaper.

A separate poll last week showed Mrs Merkel's popularity ratings down to a four-year low, despite her widely cheered resistance to a Greek bailout. It showed Mrs Merkel's personal popularity down seven points in the last month to 55 per cent.