Men and women, old and young, thronged poll stations across Germany on Sunday as the country holds a general election for the Bundestag, the lower chamber of parliament, which will elect a new chancellor.

In precinct 77 in Pankow, a district in northeast Berlin, people were standing in long lines, waiting to cast their votes after poll stations opened at 8:00 a.m. (0600 GMT).

An electoral official working at a station located in a neighborhood middle school, said the voter turnout is expected to be high because the neck-to-neck race has aroused the voters' enthusiasm to vote.

The official, who declined to be named, said many elderly people who seldom walk out of their houses, managed to come, partly due to the rarely fine weather.

Elderly couples came hand in hand. Parents with babies in arms or pulling children with hands also came. So did some senior citizens with walking sticks.

Voter turnout reached 25 percent around 11:30 a.m. (0900 GMT), the official said, adding that "It's quite high as most people would like to cast their votes in the afternoon." He put the final turnout at about 75 percent.

An old woman told Xinhua that she was a traditional voter who always gives her second vote to the same party but she refused to name it.

However, one can guess that she is a supporter of Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder's Social Democratic Party (SPD) because she said she didn't believe any other party could solve the problems facing the country, such as high unemployment.

She cited the similarity between the election platforms put forward by parties other than the one she voted for.

Each voter casts two ballots in the general election, the first for a candidate running to represent a particular district and the second for a particular political party.

The second votes determine each party's share of the popular vote and also the number of Bundestag seats the parties will occupy.

A young man said he cast his second vote for Angela Merkel's Christian Democratic Union (CDU), because he thought it's time for change.

Political views within one family may differ. A husband told Xinhua that he voted for the Greens, while his wife said she voted for the CDU because she didn't like the remarks made by Schroeder's wife Doris about Merkel.

Doris has said to the effect that Merkel does not know well about the problems facing families with children because she has no kids.

Another young man said the reason for him to vote for the SPD rather than the CDU, the two front-runners of the race, was that the CDU would walk closer with the United States, which he didn't like.

All the interviewees declined to be named.

The election, called in May by Schroeder after his party was defeated in a key state election, was held a year earlier ahead of schedule.

Opinion polls on Friday showed that Merkel's coalition with the liberal Free Democrats enjoyed a slim lead in the race.

Source: Xinhua