German election race still open as campaign nears end
Germany’s acrimonious election campaign heads into the final stretch with Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder and conservative challenger Angela Merkel trading barbs to the last minute – reflecting the tight race that will decide the path Germany takes in trying to end years of economic stagnation.
Addressing a key theme of past days, Schroeder’s government denies it is hiding plans for sweeping budget cuts until after Sunday’s vote. Although few expect Schroeder to stay in power, polls suggest the vote may yield no clear majority and the two main parties may be forced into an uneasy coalition.
Schroeder and Merkel were addressing their parties’ official closing rallies this evening, but in a departure from unwritten custom, planned to continue campaigning tomorrow.
A poll by the Forsa agency reflected persistent uncertainty over what coalition will emerge on Sunday, with a quarter of voters still undecided.
Merkel’s Christian Democrats and their Bavarian sister party lead Schroeder’s Social Democrats on a platform promising accelerated economic reforms and improved relations with the US.
But it remains unclear if they can win a majority in parliament with Merkel’s preferred ally, the anti-tax Free Democrats, or if she would have to turn to Schroeder’s Social Democrats to form an uneasy right-left alliance that she herself says could paralyse policy-making.
As the parties compete for last-minute votes, Merkel claimed this week that Finance Minister Hans Eichel was trying to keep under wraps a “poison list” of planned savings until after the election.
Senior conservatives suggested the centre-left government plans to cut pensions, and Merkel called last night for a parliamentary inquiry into the alleged plan.
Merkel’s offensive followed Schroeder’s onslaught over recent weeks on her shadow finance minister, Paul Kirchhof. The former judge has advocated a flat-rate income tax, and Schroeder contends he would attack the welfare state.
The parties’ strife over supposed secret cuts suggested they fear many voters may be reluctant to vote for change, despite dissatisfaction with Germany’s yawning budget deficit and sluggish, highly regulated economy.
The mass-circulation daily Bild, which has leaned toward the conservatives in this election, appeared Friday with the front-page headline: “Is Eichel Lying?” It said the list envisioned savings of £8bn (€11.9bn) per year at the Health Ministry, and raised the prospect of further cuts to benefits for the long-term jobless.
The Finance Ministry insisted Eichel had never ordered any such list, had no knowledge of it and would not implement it.
“This is the result of work by individual officials, which the leadership of the ministry had no knowledge of,” spokesman Stefan Giffeler said in a statement, dismissing “saving plans that are in parts absurd.”
The plan, he maintained, “is recognisably not the finance policy of the government and will never become it.” He said officials appeared to have worked with opposition politicians to release the list, and the ministry was considering disciplinary action.
“Bild is once again acting as a one-sided mouthpiece for the opposition in the current election campaign,” Giffeler said. Schroeder’s government has sparred regularly with Bild, and the chancellor at one point refused to give the newspaper interviews in protest at allegedly unfair reporting.
Schroeder’s party has whittled down the double-digit poll lead that Merkel’s conservatives once held with attacks on Kirchhof – who, it maintains, has his own list of planned cuts.
Schroeder has attacked the opposition’s pledges of labour market and tax reform, saying that “what they want is cold, it lacks in solidarity, and that makes it inhuman.”
The survey carried out by Forsa this week put support for the Christian Democrats at between 41% and 43%, with the Free Democrats between 7% and 8%.
Schroeder’s Social Democrats polled between 32% and 34%, with his junior partner, the Greens, at 6% to 7%.
The Left Party, an alliance of ex-communists and former Social Democrats alienated by Schroeder’s efforts to trim the welfare state, polled between 7% and 8%. All three parties on the left have rejected speculation that they could link up to keep the chancellor in power – a combination that would run into major policy and personality clashes.
Forsa, which surveyed 2,004 people, found 25% percent have yet to decide either whether they will vote or who they will vote for.
