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Poll suggests Germany could have first Green chancellor
Apr 17, 2011, 10:31 GMT
Berlin - Germany could have its first Green Party chancellor at the next general election, according to one opinion poll published Sunday.
For the first time, the Greens emerged a point ahead of the Social Democrats (SPD), considered the other main opposition party, with the pair combined scoring 10 per cent more than the current centre-right coalition.
The Greens and SPD jointly scored 47 per cent in the survey by TNS Emnid, compared to just 37 per cent for Chancellor Angela Merkel's current coalition.
Merkel's coalition of Christian Democrats, Bavaria's Christian Social Union and the Free Democrats (FDP) is in power until the next general election, due in 2013.
In the survey of 4,000 voters, the CDU/CSU polled 32 per cent, SPD 23 per cent, the Greens 24 per cent, the FDP 5 per cent and the Left Party 9 per cent.
The anti-nuclear Green Party has surged in popularity since the disaster at Japan's Fukushima reactor, and is due to appoint its first state premier after record results in the southern state of Baden-Wuerttemberg last month.
Analysts have speculated whether the Greens' charismatic former foreign minister Joschka Fischer would return to politics, as his party's candidate to succeed Merkel - but he has rejected the notion.
'A return of Joschka Fischer to politics is out of the question,' he told German daily Bild.
Read more about Germany Politics
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