ELECTION PREVIEW:GERMAN CHANCELLOR Angela Merkel is on course for a second term in office after tomorrow's general election, but voters have yet to decide on the government she will head.
Despite a mundane campaign starved of content and conflict, tomorrow’s election is turning into a cliffhanger. Final polls have been unable to predict whether Dr Merkel can swap her four-year grand coalition partner, the Social Democrats (SPD), for the pro-business Free Democrats (FDP).
The final result will depend on how many of Germany’s 62 million voters bother showing up at polling stations, and how the one in four undecided voters will finally swing.
Dr Merkel’s Christian Democrats (CDU) and the FDP have a razor-thin parliamentary majority of just one percentage point, according to final polls.
After returning from the G20 summit in Pittsburgh, Dr Merkel will have to shrug off her jet lag to appear at a rally this evening in Berlin. The CDU chose to focus its campaign almost entirely on Dr Merkel’s character, but she has struggled to transform her personal popularity – and the incumbent bonus – into votes.
In 40 campaign rallies, she did little to remind voters of policy achievements early in her term, such as repairing strained relations with Washington and Warsaw. Her double-presidency of the EU and the G8 won plaudits, too, until the economic crisis eclipsed everything else.
Seven out of 10 Germans approve of her record in office during the worst economic crisis in memory. Yet the centrist path of her CDU has led the party right back to where it finished on election night four years ago: 35 per cent.
Apart from vague tax cut promises, Dr Merkel has given voters little idea where she wants to lead Germany in the next four years.
“There are so many looming foreign policy challenges – from the EU’s direction after Ireland’s Lisbon vote to Nato’s new strategic concept – but no ideas from Merkel,” said political analyst Jan Techau.
As the campaign neared its end, CDU analysts have reacted with alarm to the news that, given the choice, one in two voters would be happy with another grand coalition. “For most voters Merkel gleamed with calm confidence during the crisis and will thus be returned as chancellor – anything else would be a political earthquake,” said Prof Henrik Enderlein of the Hertie School of Governance in Berlin.
“But she’s nervous of a second grand coalition in case the SPD do a deal half-way through with the opposition and vote her out.”
A return of this political marriage of convenience is the only realistic chance for the SPD to hang on to power. Despite a late-campaign rally, and an increasingly confident candidate in Frank-Walter Steinmeier, final polls gave the party just 27 per cent, down seven points on 2005.
His campaign was based on a warning – of a welfare state demolition if the FDP gets into office – and a promise of a wealth tax and a statutory minimum wage if the SPD is returned to office.
Mr Steinmeier’s campaign rallies were overshadowed by an unwillingness of the SPD to challenge head on the new Left Party that has stolen many of its members to take an estimated 12 per cent of the poll.
The SPD and the Left have ruled out a coalition with each other after the election, despite several such alliances at state level. That leaves Mr Steinmeier with only one other, unlikely, path to power: a so-called “traffic light” coalition with the (red) SPD, the Greens and the (yellow) FDP.
Meanwhile, the CDU was working hard last night to limit the damage caused by a leak from the CDU-controlled interior ministry of a paper proposing new powers for Germany’s domestic secret service.
The “coalition preparatory paper” has caused political uproar with its taboo-breaking proposals which, if implemented, would end postwar Germany’s strict separation of the secret service from the police and judiciary, after the disastrous experiences in the Third Reich.
Measures proposed in the paper would allow the secret service greater leeway to spy on German citizens, widen the use of genetic fingerprinting, and give access to phone and internet data stored for six months.
Possible coalitions
CDU-FDP:Quite likely.
Domestic:broad agreement on everything from need to retain nuclear energy to greater investment in education; reform of health and pension systems likely;
FDP opposed to CDU’s tough law-and-order line, wants easing of citizen surveillance and data collection.
Economy:tax cuts to encourage spending and stimulate the economy. FDP demanding a radical fiscal overhaul and an end to multibillion subsidies
EU:likely FDP foreign minister Guido Westerwelle said in a recent policy speech thataaaaaaaaaaa "co-operation and reliability" would be his priorities in German relations with EU partners.
World:review of Germany's Nato mission in Afghanistan, slow troop withdrawal; FDP calling for removal of last US nuclear warheads from Germany.
CDU-SPD:Likely
Domestic:forced to reopen compromise health and pension reforms; immediate conflict likely on nuclear energy. CDU wants to roll back a shutdown of nuclear plants by 2020. SPD standing firm.
Economy:CDU wants a middle- class tax cut; SPD wants an entry- level cut and a top-rate hike; disagreement on how to rein in manager bonuses.
EU:no clear line, two competing foreign policy camps in the CDU- controlled chancellery and an SPD-controlled foreign ministry.
World:SPD wants to work towards a 2013 exit from Afghanistan; CDU say naming pull-out dates encourages the Taliban.
SPD-FDP-Green:Unlikely, not impossible.
Domestic:SPD-Greens likely to force the FDP into pushing renewable energy and retaining the nuclear shutdown; agreement on citizen rights.
Economy:huge opposition from the SPD-Greens to FDP plans to slash welfare and subsidies. FDP would block rich tax and greater regulation of bankers and bonuses EU: no clear line.
World:SPD-Green anxious to limit German military deployment; FDP foreign minister would push for Nato to drop ambitions as a "replacement UN".
DEREK SCALLY