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Angela Merkel and Gerhard Schröder were all over the German media last week; often as the butt of political cartoons and doctored photos ridiculing their poor election showings. What Germans didn't see, though, was a clear picture of a new Chancellor. Germany's vote produced no decisive result. The leaders of the two big parties - Schröder of the Social Democrats (spd) and Merkel of the Christian Democrats (cdu) - both claimed victory, but the real winners were the smaller parties. The Left Party, made up of disaffected ex-spd members and former communists, won 54 seats...
Merkel, 51, has been no less meticulous in charting her political campaign. As leader of the Christian Democratic Union, she will be running in federal elections Sept. 18 against Gerhard Schröder, whose Social Democrats have shared power with the Green Party since 1998. Unlike Schröder, Merkel doesn't make grand promises, preferring to talk about, say, trimming waste in the health-care system or tweaking consumer tax rates. Judging from polls, the strategy is working: the Christian Democrats last week led the Social Democrats by 13 points, though 29% of voters say they're still undecided. Merkel...
...finishes, the strains of the Rolling Stones' 1973 hit Angie fill the air. The song has become Merkel's theme tune in a campaign that has her Christian Democratic Union (cdu) and its Bavarian sister party, the csu, 14 points ahead of Chancellor Gerhard Schröder and his Social Democratic Party (spdYet the polls also show two other trends: a surprisingly large number of Germans say they don't know who they will vote for on Sept. 18, and in personal popularity ratings Schröder bests Merkel by 51% to 35%. According to a survey by Germany...
...Oskar Lafontaine told Time, is that the party "offers an alternative. Wage- and salary-earners, pensioners, young people looking for education urgently need somebody who represents them in parliament." Merkel knows she needs to reach these groups, too. She never misses a chance to remind voters of Schröder's 1998 election pledge that if he couldn't reduce unemployment he wouldn't deserve re-election. Joblessness has increased by 1 million since he first took office. The cdu is pitching Merkel as honest and unvarnished. Posters depict the 51-year-old former research chemist as apple-cheeked...
Ever since German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder announced plans in May for snap elections this fall, it was a given that Angela Merkel would boot the Social Democrats out of office. But now, with the campaign in full swing, it's beginning to look as though her only option will be to form a cumbersome grand coalition with her political opponents. For now, Merkel's Christian Democrats (cdu) are still ahead of Schröder's Social Democrats - by 13 points in the Election Research Group's latest weekly poll for zdf television. But missteps...