Comic Election Video

The official video of the song, sung by an unnamed 22-year-old law student from the Berlin area, attracted nearly 14,000 views in its first day on the video-hosting website Youtube, and the young singer has been interviewed by a host of news sources including big-selling German tabloid Bild.

The video was produced by T-Online's Wahlzeit.tv website, after Steini-Girl offered them the song she wrote together with a friend. "She just thinks he's a really nice guy," Wahlzeit spokesman Bjoern Akstinat said.

Steini-Girl, whose real name is being kept secret, said her main aim "is to get people voting on Sunday, and maybe I'll get a few lucrative jobs out of it too."

Ironic love declaration

In the video, Steini-Girl dances in front of the various seats of federal government in Berlin, including the Reichstag and the chancellery, wearing not many clothes and kissing pictures of Social Democrat chancellor candidate Frank-Walter Steinmeier.

The song itself is mainly an ironic love declaration to Steinmeier, described in the lyrics as "coiled masculinity", while his chief opponent in the election Chancellor Angela Merkel is dismissed as "too masculine". The song also deems Free Liberal Party leader Guido Westerwelle "too feminine" and prominent Left party politician Gregor Gysi "too small".

Steini-Girl is consciously based on Obama Girl, a similar viral video song performed by model Amber Lee Ettinger, which was massively successful in the United States during the 2008 presidential election campaign. Obama Girl has attracted over 15 million clicks on Youtube to date, and made a minor celebrity of Ettinger.

"My friend was in the USA last year when Obama Girl was totally popular, and she thought we should do that, so we just messed around and made a few rhymes, the way you do," she told Bild.

The SPD has denied any involvement in making the video, and a spokesman for Steinmeier would not reveal whether he had watched it.

bk/dpa
Editor: Andreas Illmer