Recent polls point to a neck-and-neck race between Merkel’s center-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and the Social Democrats, with the latter marginally ahead. The polls show the Greens, making their first bid for the chancellorship, in third place after a campaign in which all three have held the lead. That set up the first election since West Germany’s initial vote in 1949 in which there is no incumbent chancellor seeking re-election. Whoever finishes first is expected to get a historically low share of the vote, with polls showing no party expected to get 30 percent support. When the CDU and the Greens chose their candidates this spring, the election was widely expected to be a race between the two.

Source: Taipei Times September 25, 2021 16:02 UTC