German Social Democrats' lead narrows days before election

FILE PHOTO: A combination of four images shows placards of Germany’s top candidates for the September 26 German general elections being placed on large boards. The top row shows Armin Laschet of the Christian Democratic Union Party CDU and Olaf Scholz of Germany’s Social Democratic Party SPD. The bottom row shows Greens Party candidate Annalena Baerbock and Christian Lindner of the Free Democratic Party FDP, in Bonn, Germany, September 20, 2021. REUTERS/Wolfgang Rattay

BERLIN (Reuters) - Germany's Social Democrats (SPD) saw their lead over Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservatives narrow in a poll published on Tuesday, pointing to a tightening race just five days before a federal election.

The SPD, whose candidate for chancellor Olaf Scholz is currently vice chancellor and finance minister in Merkel's grand coalition, remained stable at 25%, according to the Forsa poll for RTL/n-tv television.

Support for the conservative CDU/CSU alliance, whose chancellor candidate is Armin Laschet, edged up one percentage point to 22%.

The other parties were all unchanged with the Greens on 17%, the business-friendly Free Democrats (FDP) at 11%, the far-right AfD at 11% and the anti-capitalist Left party at 6%.

Forsa projected that the SPD would win 206 seats in the next Bundestag, the lower house of parliament, the CDU/CSU bloc 185, the Greens 140, the FDP and the AfD both 91 each and the Left 49.

This raises the possibility of four coalition options after Sunday's election:

- the SPD with the Greens and FDP, also known as a traffic light coalition due to their party colours of red, green and yellow;

- the CDU/CSU bloc with the Greens and the FDP, described as a Jamaica coalition in reference to the country's flag and the party colours of black, green and yellow;

- SPD with the Greens and the Left, dubbed R2G or red-green-red coalition;

- or an SPD-led grand coalition with the conservatives as junior partner.

All parties have ruled out working with the populist, far-right AfD.

Scholz and the Greens have also poured cold water on the idea of forming a coalition with the conservatives, saying that the CDU/CSU alliance needed to rebuild itself in opposition following 16 years of Merkel's consensus-driven, centrist rule.

(Reporting by Michael Nienaber, editing by Giles Elgood)