Word: spd
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...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's Forsa Institute, the cdu/csu leads the spd 43% to 29%, but almost half of voters have yet to make up their minds. If the waverers are enticed to spdspd defectors and former communists - the center-right cdu/csu may not win a big enough majority to govern with the Free Democrats (fdp). That could force Merkel's and Schr...
...should be courting votes rather than controversy in the east. Some 26% of east German voters intend to cast their ballots for the Linksbündnis, according to Forsa. The appeal, Linksbündnis co-founder and former spd Finance Minister 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...
...television. But missteps by the cdu and its sister party, the Bavarian Christian Social Union, are making it unlikely that, if elected, Merkel will be able to form a coalition with the pro-business Free Democrats (fdp). Instead, they might be forced to form a coalition with the spd, which many analysts fear could stall economic reforms. "Her campaign now has serious problems," says Jürgen Falter, political scientist at the University of Mainz. Merkel has tripped several times out of the starting gate. She floated the idea of raising the country's 16% value-added tax to help...
...leftist alliance - Linkspartei.pds, a coalition of disgruntled left-wingers and eastern German reformed communists - is polling 12% nationally. It's also the strongest party in the east, at 34%. The conservative cdu and its sister party, the csu, are running at 44% nationally, compared to 24% for the ruling spd. If the cdu does win, the strength of Linkspartei.pds in the east could make the party's majority so slim that it's forced into a coalition with the spd. The result: political stalemate. "It could be that the balance of power is even narrower," says Christian Pestalozza...
Foreign investment firms have incentives to improve, not destroy, the businesses they buy. Wincor Nixdorf is a case in point. The German firm, which makes ATMs for banks, was singled out by the SPD's Müntefering in his "locust" critique because of the profits that its investors, KKR and Goldman Sachs, made when they sold out. The two firms acquired Wincor Nixdorf from Siemens in 1999 for $709 million and by the beginning of the year had sold their entire stake, starting with a public offering in 2004. KKR and Goldman haven't disclosed details, but people familiar with...