BERLIN - The Social Democrat premier of Germany's most populous state has nudged ahead of Chancellor Angela Merkel as the country's most popular politician, according to a survey published on Friday that highlights the conservative chancellor's mounting woes. On a sliding scale from plus-5 to minus-5 in the ZDF-Politbarometer survey, Germans polled gave 1.7 to Hannelore Kraft, the down-to-earth leader of North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW) who won a fresh five-year mandate last month, a whisker ahead of Merkel. Reassuringly for Merkel, still the most popular politician at the national level, Kraft has said she has no plans to move to Berlin to seek the leadership of her centre-left SPD, the main opposition force, in next year's federal elections. In joint third place came two SPD national leaders, Peer Steinbrueck and Frank-Walter Steinmeier, and Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble, whose hard-headed approach to the euro zone crisis has earned him the respect of German taxpayers anxious about having to bail out heavily indebted states such as Greece. Despite her still relatively solid personal popularity, Merkel has seen support for her centre-right Christian Democrats (CDU) ebb in recent months. They lost two regional elections, including the one in Kraft's NRW, and have upset some supporters by pushing a divisive bill on childcare payments. The poll showed support for the CDU now at 34 percent, down two percentage points from the last ZDF-Politbarometer survey, while the SPD was up one percentage point at 32 percent. The Greens, the SPD's preferred coalition partner if it wins next year's federal election, were on 13 percent while Merkel's current coalition partner, the pro-business Free Democrats, wereon 5 percent, just enough to squeeze back into parliament. Such results would allow the SPD to return to power in alliance with the Greens, though another option remains for a 'grand coalition' between Merkel's CDU and the Social Democrats. Friday's poll, which canvassed 1,232 people from June 11 to 14, showed continued strong support for Merkel's insistence on tough budget-cutting austerity measures to tackle the euro zone crisis. But more than 70 percent opposed Merkel's plan to give parents an allowance to keep their toddlers at home rather than sending them to nursery. The bill has drawn fire from both the opposition and pro-business lawmakers in Merkel's own coalition.
