Parlamentary Elections: German Chancellor Angela Merkel gets the Conservatives' 2009 election campaign officially underway

Germans are going to the polls in national elections in exactly three weeks' time. Today, Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservative CDU party officially launched its campaign effort in Düsseldorf. In her keynote speech Merkel reaffirmed her commitment to a CDU-led conservative coalition with the pro business Free Democrats. In a rare attack on her political rivals, she accused the Social Democrats of being in the middle of an identity crisis. The SPD are currently the junior partner in her grand coalition government.