BERLIN, Oct. 5 (Xinhua) -- Markus Soeder (CSU), the governor of Bavaria, has blamed infighting in the ruling "grand coalition" for the current weakness of his Christian Social Union (CSU) party in opinion polls during a televised appearance on Friday.
"These are all numbers which are incredibly influenced by politics in Berlin," Soeder said with view to the latest Infratest dimap survey in which the CSU's voter support has slumped to 33 percent in its Bavarian homestead. He warned voters not to treat regional elections in his state as an opportunity to punish the federal government.
The CSU, the conservative sister party of chancellor Angela Merkel's Christian Democratic Union (CDU), has traditionally dominated politics in Bavaria by defending an absolute legislative majority there throughout most of the post-war period.
When polled in an Infratest dimap survey published on Thursday night, however, only 23 percent of voters said they wanted the CSU to continue ruling alone following an upcoming vote on Oct. 14. According to the survey, it would theoretically even be possible for the Free Democratic Party (FDP), Greens (Gruene), German Social Democrats (SPD) and Left Party (Linke) to form a government together without any participation of the incumbent.
Responding to the poll, Soeder urged Bavarian voters to "reconsider for two seconds" before casting their ballot in less than two weeks. "A game of a few seconds can become a five-year result."
For Soeder, the deterioration of his party's regional ratings reflected growing voter dissatisfaction with the "grand coalition" formed by the CDU, CSU and SPD on a federal level. "Internal fights are always damaging, no matter who starts them," the governor said.
Soeder's party chief Horst Seehofer acts as the interior minister in the federal government and is himself seen as the foremost cause of cabinet dissent by most voters according to recent polls. Commenting on the latest confrontation between Seehofer, Merkel and the SPD over his defense of the controversial ex-intelligence chief Hans-Georg Maassen, Soeder said that there was still room for improvement in the work of the "grand coalition".
At the same time, Soeder vowed that there would be "zero cooperation" between the CSU and Alternative for Germany (AfD) to preserve its rule in Bavaria.
The wealthy south eastern region is the only of Germany's 16 federal states where the CSU participates in electoral competitions. In spite of the CSU downward trend in polls, Soeder insisted that the party had done well by Bavarians while in power.
