GERMANY: Support for Germany's opposition Christian Democrats (CDU) has risen to a record 57 per cent, a new opinion poll shows, its highest-ever level of support and enough for an overall majority in the parliament, the Bundestag.The Chancellor Mr Gerhard Schröder's Social Democrats (SPD) has seen a collapse in support to just 21 per cent, according to the Politbarometer poll for ZDF public television.
The SPD's support has failed to recover despite Mr Schröder's decision to stand down as its leader. Over two thirds of voters support Mr Schröder's decision to resign, but only a quarter of those asked felt it would help Mr Schröder overcome his current political difficulties as he struggles to implement a painful reform programme.
The surge in support for the CDU comes despite a week of unseemly political poker when CDU politicians finally chose Mr Horst Köhler, head of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), as their candidate for Germany's federal president.
The CDU, its Bavarian sister party, the CSU, and the liberal Free Democrats (FDP) agreed on Mr Köhler's name only after countless rounds of late-night horse-trading.
The FDP had already rejected the CDU's first choice, former leader Mr Wolfgang Schäuble, forcing CDU leader Dr Angela Merkel to come up with an alternative.
Mr Köhler, a former head adviser to former Chancellor Helmut Kohl, said he was "honoured" to have been nominated and resigned immediately from the IMF.
"I believe that I have grown into the job," said Mr Köhler before departing for Germany yesterday.
"What Germany needs now above all, I believe, is a discussion and a process of change, not just in the business world."
The government has put forward its own candidate, but Mr Köhler is likely to win next May as the opposition holds a majority in the Federal Assembly, the body charged with picking a president.