A top official in Germany's opposition conservatives dismissed recent attacks by the ruling Social Democrats on financial investors, calling the comments a ploy to boost support in a key state election. Social Democrat (SPD) party leader Franz Muentefering provoked controversy last month when he compared financial investors "chewing up" firms for profit to "a plague of locusts". His comments have struck a chord in the industrial state of North Rhine-Westphalia which votes on Sunday in a state election dominated by worries about jobs and welfare cuts. The election, in Germany's most populous state, is seen as a dry run for federal elections next year and the SPD is trailing in opinion polls. "Muentefering's discussion is just an election ploy, it isn't serious and it won't have any consequences. As active politicians, we don't have to get involved," Volker Kauder, general secretary of the opposition Christian Democrats (CDU) told Reuters in an interview. --more 2326 Local Time 2026 GMT
