Germany: German chancellor Gerhard Schröder's re-election hopes have been shaken by a survey showing a swing to the opposition Christian Democrats (CDU) of the magnitude that swept him into office in 1998.
Some 60 per cent of Germans believe it's time for a change of government, according to a new survey for ZDF public television, a week after Mr Schröder called a September election a year early.
Support for the CDU has jumped by four points to 52 per cent while the SPD is down to 27 per cent, according to the survey by the Forschungsgruppe Wahlen polling company.
More worryingly for Mr Schröder, he has been overtaken in the polls for the first time by CDU leader Angela Merkel.
One in two of those questioned said they favoured Dr Merkel as chancellor, while 44 per cent backed a third term for Mr Schröder. Dr Merkel was favoured by both men and women, though more popular among women, and there was no clear east-west divide.
The new survey makes it all but certain that Dr Merkel will be appointed the CDU's challenger on Monday. Three years ago the party fielded the Bavarian prime minister Edmund Stoiber to challenge Mr Schröder. Unlike Dr Merkel, however, Mr Stoiber never once overtook Mr Schröder in the opinion polls.
More than 43 per cent of voters expressed greater trust in the CDU in the crucial area of job creation, compared to just 12 per cent for the SPD.
The survey is a mirror image of the pattern in the state North Rhine-Westphalia, where the SPD lost power to the CDU last weekend after 39 years.
A week after throwing in the towel and calling an early election, Mr Schröder has run into unexpected difficulties trying to bring down his own government.
The president has yet to give the green light to a dissolution of parliament. That can only come after the chancellor loses a Bundestag vote of confidence.
But Mr Schröder has a solid, if small, parliamentary majority, and a growing number of constitutional lawyers - including the Green Party's legal expert - have said that deliberately losing a confidence motion for new elections could be unconstitutional.
Meanwhile SPD leader Franz Müntefering distanced his party from its Green Party coalition partners yesterday, saying it was "a marriage of convenience and not love".