German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s
bid for re-election on Sept. 22 may get a lift from Sunday’s
Bavarian state vote, with polls showing her Christian Social
Union sister party poised to regain an absolute majority.

Led by Prime Minister Horst Seehofer, the CSU has rebounded
in the state since 2008 when its worst result in more than 50
years forced the party into a coalition with the Free Democrats.
Merkel is due to hold a rally on Sept. 20 in the state capital
Munich that will be her eighth speech in Bavaria since July,
underlining the region’s importance to her bid for a third term.

Bavaria, the biggest of Germany’s 16 states by territory
and the second largest by population, with 12.4 million people,
is a bellwether for the federal vote seven days later. A CSU
majority would validate Merkel’s stewardship of Europe’s biggest
economy and her leadership during the euro-area crisis, lending
her momentum against her main challenger, Peer Steinbrueck.

“Merkel is scrutinizing the Bavarian vote for something to
give a meaningful push to the last week of her campaign,” Peter Matuschek, chief political analyst of polling company Forsa GmbH
in Berlin, said in a telephone interview. “A marked improvement
of the CSU’s score will be held up as a triumph by Merkel.”

The CSU is polling 47 percent in Bavaria, according to an
Emnid survey for N24 television yesterday. The opposition Social
Democrats, Merkel’s main rivals at the national level, are at 18
percent, while their Green party allies had 12 percent. The Free
Democrats had 4 percent. Emnid polled about 1,000 voters on
Sept. 11. No margin of error was given.

Merkel Leads

Nationally, support for Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union
and the CSU is a combined 39-41 percent, according to the seven
leading polling companies. The SPD under Steinbrueck is at 25-28
percent. The Greens are at 9-12.5 percent, while the Free
Democrats, Merkel’s current coalition partner with whom she
wants to ally again after Sept. 22, is at 4-6 percent.

The election ambitions of Merkel and Seehofer are aided by
Bavaria’s economic performance. Home to BMW-maker Bayerische
Motoren Werke AG, engineering giant Siemens AG and insurer
Allianz SE, the state’s gross domestic product last year was
about $619 billion, bigger than the output of Poland or Austria.

Munich-based BMW’s share price is 131 percent higher now
than on Sept. 27, 2009, the last federal election date, compared
with a 49 percent rise in the benchmark DAX Index.

“What really makes me happy is that we have eliminated
youth unemployment,” Seehofer said in remarks carried by N-TV
yesterday. Bavaria’s unemployment rate is 3.8 percent compared
with 6.8 percent nationally in Germany.

Separate Party

The CSU was founded as a separate Christian Democratic
movement in Bavaria after the defeat of Nazi Germany in 1945.
Merkel’s CDU was also founded in 1945 in the rest of what became
West Germany under Konrad Adenauer, who became West Germany’s
first postwar chancellor in 1949.

The CDU doesn’t contest Bavarian ballots while the CSU only
puts up candidates in its home state, their votes counting
together in federal elections. The CSU has three of the 16 posts
in Merkel’s cabinet: currently transport, agriculture and
interior affairs.

For all the CSU’s popularity in Bavaria, the last four
polls are divided on whether the Free Democrats will reach the 5
percent threshold to win parliamentary seats in the state
assembly in Munich. That too could have national ramifications,
since just as a strong CSU stands to help Merkel, so a weak FDP
might upset her plans for a repeat of her current coalition.

Free State

Bavaria, legally called the “Free State of Bavaria,” has
always considered itself a place apart from the rest of Germany.
“Mia san mia,” is a favorite saying of regional patriots that
translates literally as “we are who we are,” though is more
usually taken to mean “don’t mess with Bavaria.”

Seehofer hasn’t shied away from conflict with Merkel in
pressing his party’s proposal for an autobahn car toll to help
pay for German highway repairs. Merkel has remained firm in
opposing the plan while indicating that she’s open to discussing
the CSU’s two other main campaign goals: the introduction of
regional rates of inheritance tax and national referendums on
key decisions affecting the European Union’s future.

Voting in Bavaria begins at 8 a.m. local time on Sept. 15
and polls close at 6 p.m., when exit polls will be broadcast on
German television. Results based on partially counted ballots
will be released from about 6:15 p.m. and preliminary final
results are published about 11 p.m.

To contact the reporter on this story:
Brian Parkin in Berlin at
bparkin@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story:
James Hertling at jhertling@bloomberg.net