Germans in Hamburg are casting their votes in a state election seen as a key test for the conservative party of Angela Merkel, Germany's chancellor.![Beust has led the CDU party in Hamburg for the last seven years [Reuters]](http://mwcnews.net/images/stories/Germany/1/Beust.jpg "Beust has led the CDU party in Hamburg for the last seven years [Reuters]")
Beust has led the CDU party in Hamburg for the last seven years [Reuters]
Ole von Beust, a member of Merkel's Christian Democrats (CDU), is expected to lose his absolute majority in parliament, according to polls, but could still form a coalition with other parties.
Should Beust decide on a coalition with the Green party, it could persuade Merkel to try a similar method at the federal level in 2009, when she will seek re-election.
The first exit polls from the northern city-state are expected at 6pm local time (1700 GMT) on Sunday.
Merkel currently leads a fractious "grand coalition" with the Social Democrats (SPD), the biggest party on the left in Germany.
The SPD has promised to heal the "social split" it says has developed under Beust's seven-year leadership between Hamburg's rich and poor.
Party challenge
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The Left party, a new organisation which comprises ex-communists and disaffected former SPD members, is also expected to do well in the Hamburg vote.
States elections in Hesse and Lower Saxony last month saw them enter those legislatures for the first time.
The Left has become more popular after it emerged this month that hundreds of Germans deposited cash in secret accounts in Liechtenstein, in an attempt to evade taxes.
The CDU and SPD have had to consider new coalition partners in the run-up to the national vote in 2009.
Kurt Beck, chairman of the SPD, has suggested that the SPD use Left party votes to seize power in Hesse after a deadlocked vote there in January.
Beck's idea was fiercely criticised by party members who are opposed to the Left and there is a chance that moderate SPD voters could desert the party in Hamburg in protest.
"The two big players in Berlin seem to be going in circles around themselves at the moment," Jackson Janes, director of the American Institute for Contemporary German Studies, said.
"And they will watch what is happening around the country as they try to figure out how to prepare for next year."
Tags: Ole von Beust Angela Merkel Germany Germans election