Merkel's conservatives shy of absolute majority: TV projections

BERLIN (Reuters) - German Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservatives are just shy of winning an absolute majority of seats in parliament, according to television projections on Sunday night. Projections from public broadcaster ARD showed her Christian Democrats (CDU) and their Bavarian sister party, the Christian Social Union (CSU), with 297 seats in the Bundestag lower house, against 301 for the combined opposition. A separate projection from ZDF showed the CDU/CSU dead even with the other three parties that have made it into parliament, the Social Democrats (SPD), Greens and Left party. (Reporting by Noah Barkin)