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Merkel’s lead over German opposition slumps

. Agency
Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservatives saw their lead over the main centre-left opposition party crumble in the sharpest one-week shift in German voter sentiment in seven years, an opinion poll showed on Sunday.
An eight percentage point lead by Merkel's Christian Democrats (CDU/CSU) over the centre-left Social Democrats (SPD) fell to just two points during a week that saw the chancellor face pressure over the euro crisis and domestic turmoil, according to the Emnid poll.
One party leader said the conservatives were also suffering from the after effects of a trouncing in a regional election on May 13 - though it was still too early to say whether the shift would have any impact on the next parliamentary vote, scheduled for 2013.
Support for the CDU and their Bavarian sister party, the Christian Social Union (CSU), fell three points to a seven-month low of 32 percent during the week up to May 23, according to the poll for Bild am Sonntag newspaper.
Support for the centre-left opposition Social Democrats rose three points to a five-month high of 30 percent over the same period, the survey found.
Merkel's conservatives had held a comfortable advantage over the SPD in polls since crushing the centre-left party in the last parliamentary election in 2009. The current two-point lead is the narrowest since October 2011.