Amid the hurly-burly of the final days of Germany's election campaign, one important figure has been remarkably silent and invisible. Mr Jost Stollmann, a 43-year-old computer entrepreneur who is set to become economics minister if the Social Democrats (SPD) win on Sunday, says he is too busy running his business to take part in the campaign.
But Germany's business community fears that Mr Stollmann's silence is evidence that he is being sidelined and that the SPD is preparing to return to a traditional, left-wing programme.
The SPD candidate for chancellor, Mr Gerhard Schroeder, has long prided himself on his good relations with business leaders and his image as a moderniser in the mould of Britain's Mr Tony Blair.
His nomination of Mr Stollmann, who is not a member of the SPD, was seen as a sign that business had nothing to fear from a Schroeder-led government.
Mr Stollmann told an audience of young business people in Berlin recently that it was possible to combine prosperity and competitiveness with a caring, efficient welfare state.
"This is the third way, neither left nor right, not ideological but pragmatic, a new, German way," he said.
During the past few weeks, however, Mr Stollmann has fallen silent while Mr Schroeder strikes a more familiar, left-wing tune, promising to reverse changes in labour law and cuts in social welfare.
As election day approaches, big business is pulling out all the stops in an effort to persuade voters to give Chancellor Helmut Kohl's centre-right government a record fifth term in office. Full page newspaper advertisements proclaim that the German economy is booming but that the SPD candidate for chancellor, Mr Gerhard Schroeder, is liable to wreck it.
There is no denying the economic good news and, despite the crises in Asia and Russia, the German economy is expected to grow by between 2.75 and 3 per cent this year. Bonn has transferred more than 1,000 billion deutschmarks to eastern Germany since unification in 1990, yet the percentage of GDP accounted for has fallen slightly in recent years.
Dr Kohl's government claims the credit for the economic upturn and for Germany's success in fulfilling the stability criteria for entry to EMU. But the chancellor is reluctant to shoulder the blame for the fact that more than four million Germans are out of work.
Much of the last parliamentary session was taken up with a bad-tempered wrangle over tax reform, with the SPD using its majority in the upper house to block the government's proposals. The government insists that taxes must come down if Germany is to remain attractive for investors and promises a top commercial tax rate of 35 per cent if it is returned to power.
Mr Schroeder hopes to form a coalition government with the environmentalist Greens, a prospect that sends a chill running down the spines of many business leaders.
The Greens believe that the tax system should be used to encourage responsible behaviour towards the environment and that polluters should face heavy penalties. Among the party's more controversial proposals is a plan to triple the price of petrol over the next 10 years.
There is little likelihood that the Greens' petrol pledge will be fulfilled, not least because so many motorists would be able to avoid the price rise by driving across the border to one of Germany's numerous neighbouring countries.
But the party's proposal to shut down tax havens within the EU would find favour with most German voters and an SPD-Green government could be expected to pursue a more aggressive policy against tax dodgers.
The launch of the euro means that many important instruments for influencing the economy will be transferred from national governments to the Frankfurt-based European Central Bank (ECB). Mr Schroeder has abandoned his opposition to the euro and claims that he now wants to make the new currency work.
Bonn and Paris are at odds over the role of politicians in influencing ECB decisions and Mr Schroeder has so far backed Dr Kohl in the dispute. But, if it comes to a choice between policies to reduce inflation and measures to create jobs, a German centre-left government might well find itself in agreement with Mr Lionel Jospin's Socialist government in France.
The SPD chairman, Mr Oskar Lafontaine, is an eloquent advocate of inter-governmental measures to control financial markets and favours fixed exchange rates between the euro, the dollar and the yen.
The Frankfurt stock market has already discounted a change of government, so that few analysts expect a sharp fall on Monday if Mr Schroeder becomes chancellor.
There is one result that would have an impact on the markets, but in a positive way. This is a grand coalition of Christian Democrats and Social Democrats, preferably (from the markets' point of view) with the CDU as the largest party.
Dr Kohl has vowed to resign rather than take part in any such arrangement, leaving the way open for his wily deputy, Mr Wolfgang Schaeuble, to become chancellor. Mr Schaeuble is popular within the business community and is also the German public's favourite politician.
Freed of the obligation to please troublesome coalition partners in the dogmatically neo-liberal Free Democrats and the socially conservative Christian Social Union (CSU), Mr Schaeuble could forge a powerful, centrist alliance with the SPD.
Such a government would enjoy a massive majority in both houses of parliament, ensuring an easy passage for even the most politically difficult economic measures. Political analysts deplore grand coalitions as recruiting sergeants for extremists from the left and right. But business loves stability and a dead heat in Bonn on Sunday should get the champagne corks popping in Frankfurt.
