German Vice Chancellor Frank-Walter Steinmeier, the top rival of German Chancellor Angela Merkel in the general election, casted his votes here on Sunday morning, saying he was "confident" in the performance of his party, the Social Democrats (SPD), in the election.

Voters across Germany started to cast ballots at 8:00 a.m. local time (0600GMT) Sunday in the general election in which Merkel is widely considered to be re-elected.

At around 10 a.m. local time (0800 GMT) in downtown Berlin, Steinmeier, the SPD's candidate for chancellory, showed up at a polling station in downtown Berlin and casted his ballots amid intensive press coverage.

Speaking to the press after voting, Steinmeier said he was confident in the "strong performance" of the SPD, adding that he believed his party would "lead the government" after the election.

However, the latest poll survey shows Steinmeier's SPD was far lagged behind Merkel's conservative bloc of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and the Bavarian Christian Social Union (CSU).

The survey says support rate for Merkel's conservative bloc stood at 35 percent, followed by the SPD with 26 percent, the FDP with 13 percent, the Greens with 11 percent and the Left party with 10 percent. Local media reported that around one-third of the voters had not made up their minds.

Merkel is scheduled to cast her ballots at around 13:00 p.m. local time (1100GMT) in downtown Berlin.

Around 80,000 polling stations across the country opened to over 62 million voters Sunday morning, and the balloting will end at 18:00 p.m. local time (1600GMT) later in the day.

German TV channels are expected to release the preliminary exit poll results immediately after the voting ends.

Source:Xinhua