BERLIN: Six months ago everything was going right for Angela Merkel. She had impressed the international community, squashed her enemies, and won the approval — if not exactly the hearts — of most Germans.

But almost a year after becoming Germany’s first female Chancellor, Ms Merkel’s honeymoon with the electorate is over. She faces plummeting poll ratings and is being battered by a revolt within her conservative Christian Democrat (CDU) party. Questions are also being asked about how long her “grand coalition” with the Social Democrats will last.

“The problem is that she is not powerful within her own party,” Hans-Peter Bartels, a Social Democratic MP, told the Guardian. “She is also someone who got through because the party couldn’t agree on anyone else. At first she was new, a woman, and from the east. But it’s now increasingly clear that she hasn’t got charisma. People in her own party are making life very difficult for her.”

Ms Merkel is hoping that Germany’s EU presidency, which starts in January, will help her to shift the spotlight from her unhappy coalition. At the same time she will take over the chair of the G8. But her success in foreign policy appears to have little impact on her popularity at home. Last month, a poll for ZDF television put the CDU, with its Bavarian sister party, the Christian Social Union (CSU), at 33 per cent — its lowest rating since reunification.

At the same time Ms Merkel’s probable challenger at the next election — the Social Democrats’ convivial leader Kurt Beck — has leapfrogged Ms Merkel in a ranking of the country’s most popular politicians. She is now fifth, with Mr Beck in second place, behind the Social Democrat foreign minister, Frank-Walter Steinmeier.

Unlike Tony Blair, Ms Merkel can still look forward to several more years in power. But few now believe she might eventually emulate her one-time hero, Helmut Kohl. He led Germany for 16 years.—Dawn/The Guardian News Service