The leader of Germany's Free Democrats, Chancellor Angela Merkel's junior coalition partner, was on Sunday criticized by a member of his own party for a slide in opinion polls which risks shutting them out of parliament in this year's election.
FDP leader Philipp Roesler, whose pro-business FDP party is projected to garner less than the 5-per-cent threshold in the general election, has refused to step down. But he may have to do so if they crash out in a vote this month in his home state of Lower Saxony.
"It tears me from the inside when I see the state of my party," Development Minister Dirk Niebel, who is expected to seek the party leadership if Roesler steps down, told FDP's annual conference in the city of Stuttgart. "The situation cannot go on like this."
Merkel's Christian Democrats (CDU) have ruled Lower Saxony in a coalition with the FDP for a decade.