* Snap vote in North Rhine-Westphalia gives Merkel headache
* Minister ignores Merkel’s demand he focus on state battle
* Roettgen refuses to give up cabinet job for state run
By Erik Kirschbaum
BERLIN, March 20 (Reuters) – Chancellor Angela Merkel’s
conservatives risk a bruising defeat in a May election in
Germany’s most populous state because the man leading her
campaign there, Environment Minister Norbert Roettgen, refuses
to risk his cabinet post.
Conservative party leaders and coalition allies have
publicly urged Roettgen to give up his cabinet job and commit
himself to leading Merkel’s Christian Democrats (CDU) even in
opposition in North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW).
The CDU has fallen five points behind the centre-left Social
Democrats and may drop further due to disenchantment over
Roettgen’s pointed reluctance to stay in the state if he loses.
Merkel pleaded with Roettgen at the weekend to commit
himself wholeheartedly but the fresh-faced lawyer, who harbours
ambitions to become chancellor one day, rebuffed her. A rout in
the state would damage Merkel ahead of her 2013 re-election
campaign.
The state, the country’s biggest electoral prize and home to
one in six voters, is a microcosm of Germany. Changes in
coalitions there have been harbingers of change for national
governments – most recently in 2005, when the CDU led a
centre-right coalition to power there four months before Merkel
was elected with the same constellation in Berlin.
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