Fourteen percent of the women canvassed said they would not rule out giving their ballot to a party to the right of the conservative Christian Democratic Union or its Bavarian sister party, the CSU, at the next state parliamentary elections.

Nine percent of men, in comparison, said they would do the same in the Emnid survey commissioned by the German newspaper Bild am Sonntag.

Emnid head, Klaus-Peter Schöppner, called the results "surprising."

"Women don't usually lean towards the rightwing spectrum so strongly," he told the newspaper.

Right shift

Schöppner said conservative women voters with traditional family views were possibly disappointed by the conservatives' modern family politics.

"Some have stopped voting," he said. "Others have turned towards parties of the far-right."

In addition to the discrepancy between men and women in their voting patterns, the survey also showed a split between eastern and western Germany. Eleven percent of western Germans canvassed by Emnid said they would vote for far-right parties, in comparison to 15 percent in eastern Germany.

Germany has recently seen a spate of racist violence that has prompted renewed calls to ban the far-right NPD party.

Racist surge

In the latest incident this weekend, a 36-year-old Iraqi was attacked with a baseball bat while waiting for a tram in the eastern German city of Magdeburg. The perpetrator, who has not yet been traced, also set his dog on the man and showered him with racist abuse.

This comes after two attacks just over a week ago. Eight Indians were set upon by a mob after a festival on Aug. 18 and chased through the streets of Mügeln, a small town in the eastern German state of Saxony. No onlookers intervened to help the men and a contingent of 70 police officers were required to get the situation under control.

On the same weekend, an Egyptian and a Sudanese man were attacked and seriously injured during a wine festival in Guntersblum, near the western German city of Mainz.