FOCUS Information Agency - Angela Merkel, Germany’s Christian Democrat Chancellor, has been locked in uneasy coalition with her Social Democratic rivals for four years, The Times reported. Together, the country’s two largest parties have steered Germany through some of the stormiest economic conditions it has faced since the founding of the Federal Republic. Political debate, however, has been muted. A grand coalition (only the second in Germany’s postwar history) forces political opponents to muffle their differences. Next month, all that will change. The general election on September 27 will pitch Ms Merkel and her Christian Democratic Union (CDU) against Frank-Walter Steinmeier and the Social Democrats (SPD). For both, it will be a liberation and a chance to seize power for themselves. All the signs are that Ms Merkel will win.The grand coalition has been an unhappy strain. It came about because the last election produced a result that gave no party the arithmetic to form a viable government without the other. Berlin has been able to pass some controversial and long overdue reforms, especially in the labour market and in social security entitlements. But each party has suffered from this enforced cohabitation. Ms Merkel has been so constrained in some of the changes her party promised that many disappointed CDU voters now say that she has proved herself not the Thatcher that they hoped for, but a colourless compromiser. The SPD has fared even worse. It has been identified with cutbacks and free-market policies that are anathema to many of its members. And it has found it impossible to create a profile separate from that of the CDU-led coalition.
The polls certainly show that the SPD has come off worse. It is running 17 points behind the CDU and has been especially hard hit on an issue that ought to be its strongest card, unemployment. This has now risen to 3.4 million amid Germany’s worst postwar recession and is predicted to climb to 4.5 million by the end of next year. Mr Steinmeier has promised new measures to eliminate unemployment by 2020, with new jobs in health, energy-saving, green sectors, the creative industries, as well as services. Most Germans are sceptical and agree with the CDU Economy Minister that such promises are hollow.
So far, the debate has been almost non-existent. Germans may find it hard to believe that they go to the polls in only six weeks. Partly this is because many are on holiday; partly because open dissent now would virtually paralyse the government; and partly because neither party has found a way to pierce the fog of political apathy.
Ms Merkel remains, to most Germans, a figure they find hard to define. Her modest, self-effacing style, her natural instinct for consensus and her somewhat austere moral rectitude appeal to many. She saw her popularity rise swiftly in the first two years of office, culminating in the general mood of euphoria that followed Germany's World Cup success in 2006. But there have since been too many missed opportunities, too slow a response to the global downturn and too little clear projection of German interests on the world stage. On such questions as the unpopular Afghanistan war, she is vulnerable. She is largely helped by the collapse of confidence in the Left. Much could happen before September 27. But, unless Mr Steinmeier can rally his confused party, Ms Merkel is likely to win by default.
