Bavaria post-vote power tussle may damage Merkel

BERLIN (Reuters) - A power struggle in Bavaria after a landslide electoral setback for conservatives allied to Chancellor Angela Merkel's party could damage her chances of reelection next year.

The leadership battle in the normally disciplined Christian Social Union (CSU) erupted after a state election Sunday in which it lost the absolute majority it had held for nearly half a century.

Merkel's Christian Democrats rely heavily on the CSU, whose worse-than-expected rout in the Bavaria vote has raised the political risks for the chancellor one year before a federal election.

Since the CSU suffered a 17-point plunge in the Bavaria election to 43 percent Sunday, party chairman Erwin Huber and state premier Guenther Beckstein first vowed to carry on but were ousted in four days of bloodletting.

Four men from rival areas are now battling to succeed Beckstein in an astonishingly open and messy fight in the party that is accustomed to making decisions behind closed doors before presenting a single candidate to the public.

"The turmoil in the CSU will cause problems for Merkel and conservatives across Germany," Matthias Jung, head of the Electoral Research Group polling institute, told Reuters.

"The CSU is going through a major crisis right now and it's difficult to predict whether they can get their act together again anytime soon -- or if at all," he added.

The CSU, the CDU's sister party in the prosperous southern state of Bavaria, accounts for more than 20 percent of the conservative bloc in Germany's lower house of parliament even though it is one of 16 states.

The disproportionate support from Bavaria helped Merkel win office in 2005. The CSU won 49.2 percent of the Bavarian vote in the 2003 federal election, a vital contribution to Merkel's slim victory over incumbent Gerhard Schroeder.

DANGERS FOR MERKEL

"The questions are: How long will this CSU power struggle last and will the party rally around the new leader?" said Jung, summing up the dangers for Merkel.

State Interior Minister Joachim Herrmann, Science Minister Thomas Goppel and state parliamentary group leader Georg Schmid announced Wednesday they wanted to succeed Beckstein.

Horst Seehofer, federal agriculture and consumer affairs minister in Berlin, also threw his hat in the ring for the race that could be decided at a party meeting Wednesday.

Beckstein and Huber complained they were the victims of intriguing by ex-CSU chairman and state premier Edmund Stoiber, who was forced out of power by Beckstein and Huber in 2007.

"The winds of war between Bavarian 'tribes' are now blowing across the state," wrote conservative daily Die Welt. "It's hard to predict who will win. But what is certain is there will be many losers, and a divided party will be weakened further."

Sigmund Gottlieb, editor in chief of Bayerischer Rundfunk television, said the CSU was in its worst ever crisis.

"It's a naked power struggle with a merciless settling of old scores and an ugly fight over regional rivalries," he said.

At national level, Merkel has headed an uneasy "grand coalition" with the center-left Social Democrats since 2005.

(Editing by Charles Dick)