Conservatives United Behind Merkel

Should Angela Merkel win the election on Sunday, she is assured the support of the conservatives in Germany's upper house of parliament for her reform agenda. Conservative state premiers, who make up the majority of the membership of the Bundesrat, Germany's upper house of parliament, said on Thursday that they would fully support Merkel's reform agenda should she unseat Chancellor Gerhard Schröder, a Social Democrat. The show of unity is no small thing. State premiers from Merkel's Christian Democratic Union have often been her fiercest competitors within the party. "Angela Merkel will lead us out of the crisis," read a joint statement given by the state premiers. The party also denied reports that it was consulting with constitutional lawyers on legal ways to avoid forming a grand coalition with the Social Democratics, who trail them by only 5 or 7 percentage points.