Beneath the elegant art deco facades of the Gansemarkt shopping centre in Hamburg, several hundred people have turned up to hear Angela Merkel. As techno music bursts through the speakers, a woman in a blue trouser suit threads her way to the main stage through a sea of orange banners. A voice booms: ‘Here is Germany’s next chancellor, Angela Merkel.â€
But with two days until Germans vote in Sunday’s general election, it is still not clear whether ‘Angie†— as fans call her — will become Germany’s next leader after all. Over the past week, her Christian Democratic party (CDU) has seen its comfortable lead slip away thanks, in part, to blunders by Merkel herself.
The polls still suggest that Merkel will become Germany’s first woman chancellor. But, if her conservatives fail to win a clear majority, she may have to preside over a ‘grand coalition†with Gerhard Schröder’s Social Democrats (SPD) — an option that, until recently, was unthinkable.
Merkel’s own message is unambiguous. Schröder’s seven years in government have been a failure, she says. Unemployment has gone up, public debt has ballooned and Germany has slipped down Europe’s economic league table. ‘He has set out to create fear in people by not telling the truth.”
The many pensioners in the audience clap; hecklers chant ‘Hau ab [Shut up]â€. This election appears to offer Germans a clear choice. Merkel argues that the only way to rescue Germany from crisis is through reforms to the much-loved ‘social-economic” model. With unemployment at almost five million, she sets out her recovery plan: less bureaucracy, a simpler tax system and a VAT increase from 16% to 18%, with the income used to cut employers’ social security costs.
She says little about foreign policy, though most observers expect her to improve relations with the United States and Britain, if elected. At her rally she gets a big cheer when she rules out Turkish membership of the European Union — a theme that plays especially well in Germany’s conservative Catholic south, an important source of votes.
Schröder’s campaign, meanwhile, may have been criticised as unworthy, but it has also been brutally effective. Over the past two weeks, the chancellor has turned this election into a referendum on Merkel’s choice for shadow finance minister, Paul Kirchhof, who has proposed a 25% flat tax. Schröder has described this as ‘unjust”. He has deftly repositioned the SPD — whose own reforms have been deeply unpopular — as the only party that can now defend Germany’s ‘social state†from Thatcherite cuts.
The row over Kirchhof’s appointment has raised questions about Merkel’s judgement. ‘Schröder was brilliant. You have to admit it,†Jurgen Klimke, a Hamburg CDU MP, said before this week’s rally started. ‘He caught us off guard. We have tried to put our case across on tax. But we haven’t managed to get it over.â€
Part of the problem, he admitted, was Merkel’s lack of experience. ‘Merkel has only been doing it for 10 to 12 years. While the others have political instincts, you sometimes feel she has to learn them.â€
The turning point in the election came when Merkel and Schröder clashed in a live TV debate. While Merkel gave a lucid explanation of her policies on tax and the economy, Schröder told 21-million Germans that he loved his wife — a strategy that saw him emerge as a clear winner.
Some believe that if Merkel’s centre-right coalition fails to win an outright majority on Sunday, the power-ful CDU premiers, who rule 11 of Germany’s states, will topple her from power. Others, though, believe that if she does win a narrow majority, she will prove an equally divisive figure. ‘She will divide German society,†said Michael Schaaf (30), a student who had turned up to disrupt the rally. ‘There will be a hard fight between left and right.†—