The designated new leader of Germany's opposition Christian Democrats, Ms Angela Merkel, whose popularity has soared since her nomination last week, has equalled the German Chancellor, Mr Gerhard Schroder, in one survey.
A Forsa institute survey published in Die Woche weekly yesterday found that Ms Merkel, until recently a little-known former physicist from the former East Germany, would equal Mr Schroder in a head-to-head chancellor race with 39 per cent.
Mr Schroder, however, would easily defeat the Bavarian premier, Mr Edmund Stoiber, who is also seen as a potential rival in the 2002 election. Mr Schroder, a Social Democrat, would beat Mr Stoiber by 44 to 32 per cent.
The CDU is not expected to decide until early 2002 who will be the party's chancellor candidate for the autumn election, and there has been speculation that Mr Stoiber, who leads the smaller Christian Social Union, could emerge as the right's candidate.
Ms Merkel (45) was nominated last week by the CDU's executive board to become the scandal-battered party's next chairman. A party congress of 1,001 CDU delegates will convene in Essen next month to vote on Ms Merkel's unchallenged candidacy.
The Forsa survey was surprising considering how far the CDU has fallen in voter surveys in recent months in the wake of the campaign finance scandal involving the former chancellor and CDU leader, Dr Helmut Kohl.
Dr Kohl has admitted accepting illegal campaign contributions while chancellor. The CDU has plunged from levels in the high 40s before the scandal broke to the low 30s in most surveys.
Meanwhile, press reports said the former East German secret police, the Stasi, spied on illegal funding by the CDU for some 30 years before the communist regime disintegrated.
The Stasi had a high-placed mole, Mr Adolf Kanter, who worked as a lobbyist for the Flick company, which in the 1970s gave hefty campaign contributions to German political parties, the Berliner Zeitung reported.
A scandal over the illegal funding erupted in the early 1980s.
Mr Kanter provided the Stasi with 1,853 reports from the mid-1960s until 1986, some four years into Dr Kohl's chancellorship. Mr Kanter's spying thus overlapped with illegal funding operations run by Dr Kohl, who was the CDU chief from 1973.
Yesterday's report followed revelations earlier this week in another newspaper that the Stasi knew of the Kohl-era slush funds.