Aug. 8 (Bloomberg) -- German voters are more satisfied with Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier's performance than with that of Chancellor Angela Merkel, a poll showed, as political parties prepare for a national election in just over a year.

Sixty-nine percent of respondents to an Infratest poll for ARD television said they were satisfied with the performance of Steinmeier, a deputy leader of the Social Democratic Party, or SPD. That compared with 67 percent for Christian Democratic Union leader Merkel, according to ARD's Web site today.

While a fillip to Steinmeier, the poll is a further blow to any ambitions SPD chairman Kurt Beck has to lead the party into the September 2009 election. Beck's rating was 23 percent, and the SPD trailed Merkel's CDU by 24 percent to 36 percent in Infratest's survey of voting intentions. Beck has said he'll decide by year's end whether he'll run as his party's candidate for chancellor.

Steinmeier, who became vice chancellor in November, is meanwhile narrowing the gap on Merkel. Asked who they would vote for if they could elect the chancellor directly, 49 percent opted for Merkel, 8 points less than last month. Steinmeier scored 35 percent, up 6 points. The 14-point gap is the smallest since Infratest began asking voters to choose between the two in December 2007, ARD said.

Separately, Beck may take a seat in the lower house of parliament, the Bundestag, in next year's election, leaving behind his premiership of the southwestern state of Rhineland- Palatinate to focus more on party business in Berlin, Norddeutscher Rundfunk reported. The decision, to be made public at a party meeting on Sept. 13, wouldn't affect a possible chancellor candidacy.

Infratest surveyed 1,501 people on Aug. 4-6. The results have a margin of error of as much as 3.1 percentage points.

To contact the reporter on this story: Alan Crawford in Berlin at acrawford6@bloomberg.net.

Last Updated: August 8, 2008 11:45 EDT