Germany`s SPD Slide In Poll After Hesse Turmoil

Four weeks ago, a Forsa poll showed the SPD on 27 percent and the CDU/CSU with 33 percent.

Support for Germany's Social Democrats has fallen sharply after a week of turmoil for the party in the western state of Hesse, an opinion poll showed.

Ten months ahead of parliamentary elections, the poll by the Forsa institute found the SPD with support of 23 percent, down three points from the prior week and trailing Chancellor Angela Merkel's Christian Democrats (CDU) and their Bavarian sister party (CSU), which were on 37 percent.

Four weeks ago, a Forsa poll showed the SPD on 27 percent and the CDU/CSU with 33 percent.

The centre-left SPD had steadily recovered from post-war lows after replacing their unpopular leader, Kurt Beck, with Franz Muentefering and naming Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steimeier as their candidate to challenge Merkel next September.

The CDU/CSU and SPD currently share power in an uneasy "grand coalition" government.

The SPD suffered this week due to turmoil surrounding the party's leader in the western state of Hesse, Andrea Ypsilanti.

The former Lufthansa flight attendant failed for a second time to take power in the state when members of her own party rebelled against her plan to form a minority government supported by the ostracised Left party.

At the federal level, neither the CDU/CSU nor the SPD are likely to win enough support on their own and will rely once again on coalition partners.

The CDU/CSU's preferred coalition partner, the Free Democrats, were steady at 12 percent in the last week, according to the Forsa poll, while the SPD's preferred partner, the Greens, had nine points, up two from the last poll a week ago.

The Left party, a grouping of former communists and SPD deserters, was unchanged at 13 percent.