Greens Slide in Polls

In a poll released on Friday, support for the German Greens party dropped one point to nine percent, providing bad news going into the weekend for Chancellor Gerhard Schröder's SPD - Greens coalition ahead of a key state election. The conservative opposition's rating rose a point to 43 percent, according to the Electoral Research Group poll for ZDF television. The Green's key member, Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer, also lost in popularity, dropping four places to fourth in a list of 10. For years, Fischer was Germany's most popular politician. The list is now headed by the conservative premier of Lower Saxony, Christian Wulff. Fischer's reputation has taken a beating because of a scandal over lax visa policies that conservatives say allowed organized criminals to enter Germany. He is due to testify before a parliamentary commission investigating the scandal on April 25.