Berlin - Chancellor Angela Merkel's grand coalition was Thursday monitoring developments in the north German state of Schleswig-Holstein where a replica alliance of conservatives and Social Democrats was heading for collapse. Parliament in the regional capital of Kiel agreed to hold a vote Friday on whether to dissolve the legislature and hold early elections on September 27, the same day as national polls.
The move follows a decision on Wednesday by the state's Christian Democrats (CDU), led by Premier Peter Harry Carstensen, to end the coalition with centre-left Social Democrats (SPD).
However, SPD leader Ralf Stegner said his party would vote against a dissolution of parliament at Friday's session. Dissolution would require a two-thirds majority in the 69-member legislature where the CDU has 30 seats, the SPD 29 and other parties 10.
Carstensen does not get on well with Stegner, a member of the SPD's left wing. The CDU premier has often accused his rival of acting like an opposition politician instead of a coalition member.
Regional CDU deputy Otto Bernhardt said the collapse of the state coalition should not be seen as a signal to the CDU-SPD alliance at national level, which is still functioning.
"The key players in the grand coalition in Berlin still get along relatively well together," he told the news portal Spiegel Online. "That has not been the case in Kiel for a long time."
But Wolfgang Bosbach, deputy floor leader of the CDU in the lower house in Berlin, said he expected the developments in Schleswig-Holstein to influence the national campaign.
Current events there show clearly that "a grand coalition is not a permanent solution," told the website of the business daily Handelsblatt.
Merkel is appealing to voters to dump the SPD in the federal election this September and allow her to take up with a smaller party, the Free Democrats, as a coalition ally.
If the CDU fails to win enough votes to dissolve parliament on Friday, Carstensen could decide to submit himself to a vote of confidence.
Asked if he would do this, Carstensen replied: "Let's wait for the outcome of the vote." Dissolving parliament is the most honourable way to deal with "the difficult situation," he said.
The CDU and SPD in the state differ on a number of key issues, among them nuclear power, funding for nursery schools and reform of local government.
But the crisis was triggered by Stegner's criticism of a 2.9-million-euro (4-million-dollar) payout to the head of the state-owned HSH-Nordbank, which had to be saved from bankruptcy by a government-funded bailout.
Carstensen claimed the SPD did not object to the payout when it was approved by the state government.
