German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder and conservative challenger Angela Merkel are holding a nationally televised debate Sunday as part of the election campaign for chancellorship.

The 90-minute debate is the only one to be held before the Sept. 18 election as the two parties finally compromised after hard talks. Schroeder had insisted two televised debates with each lasting 60 minutes, but Merkel had stuck to one.

Media-savvy Schroeder is expecting that the debate would give him a boost, as a similar debate did in 2002 campaign when he came from behind to overtook conservative chancellor candidate Edmund Stoiber and reelected.

Polls show that Schroeder's Social Democratic Party (SPD) and its junior partner, the Greens, have been trailing far behind Merkel's Christian Democratic Union (CDU/CSU) alliance only two weeks before the Sept. 18 election.

The debate is part of the candidates' campaign for the early election, which was called by Schroeder in May, when the SPD lost in a crucial state election in stronghold North Rhine-Westphalia due to unpopular economic reform policies including curbing jobless welfare.

A N-24 TV poll released over the weekend showed 59 percent of Germans said that Schroeder would win the debate, with only 24 percent expecting Merkel to win.

But that does not mean he would win the final election as the ZDF network survey showed Schroeder's SPD/Greens coalition netted only 39 percent of the vote, while Merkel's CDU/CSU and their Free Democratic Party obtained 50 percent.

Source: Xinhua