East German swing voters wooed as election looms

CHEMNITZ, Germany (Reuters) - Carolin Schmidt, a 22-year old student from the east German city of Chemnitz, plans to make a significant swing from left to right with her vote in next month's federal election.

Four years ago, she voted for a far-left grouping, the Left party, but intends to support the business-friendly Free Democrats (FDP) in the election on September 27.

"I found I could most identify with the FDP's manifesto this year, but this could change in the future -- I don't know how I would vote in four years time," Schmidt said.

Nearly 20 years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, many voters in the former communist state have still not formed strong party allegiances and are notoriously unpredictable.

This has made the eastern states, where roughly one fifth of the German population resides, a key battleground in the run-up to the election, when Chancellor Angela Merkel, herself an easterner, hopes to win a second term.

Regional elections in the states of Saxony -- home to Chemnitz, formerly Karl-Marx-Stadt -- and in Thuringia on August 30 are being closely watched as an indication of how eastern voters are likely to swing when the polls go nationwide.

Merkel's party has a commanding lead in Saxony, where they appear headed for a coalition with the FDP or possibly a "grand coalition" that would mirror Merkel's federal partnership.

But in Thuringia, incumbent state premier and top Merkel ally Dieter Althaus looks vulnerable due partly to the strength of the Left party.

Dietmar Herz, a political scientist at Erfurt University says a setback for the CDU in Thuringia, and in a separate vote on Sunday in the western state of Saarland, could set the tone for the federal vote next month, unsettling Merkel's party which for now has a comfortable lead in national polls.

"It would change sentiment which is hugely important," Herz said. "The CDU will have to head into the last weeks of the election as a loser."

"FLOURISHING LANDSCAPES"

Eastern voters overwhelmingly backed conservative Helmut Kohl, the "father" of German reunification, in elections in 1990 and 1994, before sanctioning him for his unfulfilled promises of "flourishing landscapes" and switching to the SPD in 1998, 2002 and 2005.

A recent opinion poll from the Allensbach Institute showed Merkel's conservative Christian Democrats (CDU) to be the leading party in the east with support of 29.5 percent.

Just behind them are the Left party on 26 percent and the Social Democrats (SPD) on 20.5 percent.

Built on the remnants of East Germany's ruling Socialist Unity Party (SED) and favoured by those who are nostalgic for the German Democratic Republic, the Left is the only party in the east that can boast a strong core of loyal voters.

It has profited from disillusion with western promises of economic prosperity and high joblessness, which is nearly twice as high in the east.

After 40 years of communist rule and two decades struggling in a unified Germany, voters in the east are sceptical of politicians and have shown a tendency to vote according to short-term pragmatic concerns.

Political analysts believed voting patterns here would become more like those in the west, which has been dominated by two mainstream parties since the end of World War Two.

Instead the reverse appears to be true.

Party loyalty in the west has fallen and voters are increasingly willing to look beyond the SPD and CDU. The Left party shocked many in Germany by winning enough support to enter parliaments in four western states over the past two years.

"It was often thought that with German reunification, the East would conform to the West," said Richard Stoess, a political scientist at Berlin's Free University.

"But with flexibility in voting behaviour, we have seen the opposite happen, and East Germans appear to be the forerunners."

(Additional Reporting by Madeline Chambers; Editing by Charles Dick)