Conservative leads election race in Germany

BERLIN, Feb 16 (AFP): When Germans go to vote in one week's time, after a polarising election campaign overshadowed by a far-right surge, they are expected to hand the chancellery to conservative Friedrich Merz.

If the polls are right, it will fall to the Christian Democrat to deal with a storm of challenges roiling Germany-economic stagnation, a society divided over immigration and a hostile Team Trump.

An election win on February 23 would only be the first step towards a new government. Merz would then need to find one or more coalition partners in a process that, even in less turbulent and toxic times, takes weeks if not months.

Merz's opposition CDU/CSU block has long polled at around 30 percent-almost double the support for either the Social Democrats (SPD) of Chancellor Olaf Scholz or his coalition allies the Greens.