CAMPAIGN fever has gripped Bonn in advance of a trio of crucial state elections on Sunday which could determine the future of Chancellor Helmut Kohl's governing coalition of Christian Democrats and Liberal Free Democrats.
Dr Kohl, in bullish form, insists that Germany remains economically competitive and promises there will be no tax rises and no cuts in state pensions. The Social Democrats' chairman, Mr Oskar Lafontaine, accuses the government of damaging the German economy through inactivity and of postponing tax rises and social welfare spending cuts until after the elections on what is known in Germany as Super Sunday".
The fact that the country's top politicians are pulling out all the stops reflects the political importance of the Baden Wurttemberg, Schleswig Holstein and Rhineland Palatinate votes. Dr Kohl's Liberal coalition partners have been humiliated in almost every state election over the past few years. They are now represented in only one state parliament apart from the three which vote on Sunday.
If the Liberals lose badly in more than one state on Sunday they will come under enormous pressure to leave Dr Kohl's coalition and to sharpen their profile in opposition in advance of the next Bundestag elections in 1998.
Dr Kohl dismissed speculation this week about a grand coalition of Christian Democrats and Social Democrats, but a disastrous result for the Liberals on Sunday could call the coalition's electoral mandate into question.
The Liberals' best chance is the southern industrial state Baden Wurttemberg where they are currently standing at 6 per cent in the opinion polls, one point clear of the 5 per cent hurdle for entry into parliament.
The campaign there has been dominated by rivalry between the strait laced Christian Democrat leader, Mr Erwin Teufel and his flamboyant Social Democrat counterpart, Mr Dieter Spori.
The two men work together in a grand coalition governing the state but Mr Spori has sought to distance himself from his coalition partners during the campaign. In a highly controversial move, he blamed rising unemployment in the state on the growing number of immigrants from the German diaspora in Central and Eastern Europe.
The Liberals share power with the Social Democrats in Dr Kohl's home state of Rhineland Palatinate, a form of coalition once commonplace in Germany but now unique. Many Liberals believe that their party must recultivate its equidistance between the two big parties if it is to win votes from both sides.
The greatest threat to the future of the Liberals is the rise of the Greens, who have, become the third largest party in most German states and are increasingly seen as the voice of the liberal, well educated young.
