- Title: GERMANY: German voters gear up for general election
- Date: 25th September 2009
- Summary: VARIOUS OF LEFT WING "LINKE" PARTY POSTER IN STREET VARIOUS OF POSTERS ON LAMP POSTS VARIOUS OF PEOPLE WALKING THROUGH MARKET (SOUNDBITE) (German) MR. NIETSCHE, SAYING: "I don't want there to be another coalition but I hope we get something new, in whatever form this must be." (SOUNDBITE) (German) MICHAEL MUSAL, SAYING: "I don't think it has been decided yet. I think
- Embargoed: 10th October 2009 13:00
- Keywords:
- Location: Germany
- Country: Germany
- Topics: Domestic Politics
- Reuters ID: LVA663MG1L873VELZACCM9AGL8SZ
- Story Text: German voters prepare to go to the polls in a general election as pollsters remain unsure as to the final outcome on Sunday (September 27).
With just three days to go until the German general election on September 27, voters in the country's capital are still trying to make up their minds about which party they will back.
According to the latest poll from Forsa for Stern magazine released on Wednesday (September 23), Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservative bloc (CDU/CSU) is on 35 percent and has enough support to form a narrow parliamentary majority with their preferred partners, the Free Democrats (FDP), who are on 13 percent. The Social Democrats, who's Chancellor candidate is German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier currently stand at 26 percent.
A parliamentary majority can be secured with support of less than 50 percent if the parties in question have more support than the other leading parties combined.
Some voters, however, think that the outcome is far from clear.
"I don't think it has been decided yet. I think a lot will be decided over the last few metres," Michael Musal told Reuters TV.
Dramatic last-minute comebacks by the Social Democrats (SPD) in the last two elections in 2002 and 2005 blindsided pollsters and Merkel's conservative bloc, her Christian Democrats (CDU) and their Christian Social Union (CSU) sister party, twice denying them hoped-for centre-right coalitions.
In 2005 the CDU/CSU fell six percentage points in the final two to three days. That last-minute slide led to post-election criticism of the pollsters who seemed to have been caught flatfooted despite state-of-the-art methods.
This year pollsters have repeatedly, and loudly, warned that their polls are mere "snapshots" of opinion at a particular moment and are not "predictions". The pollsters warn there could be another late shift due to an even larger pool of undecideds.
After running an awkward "grand coalition" with her main political rivals, the centre-left Social Democrats (SPD), since 2005, Germany's first woman chancellor is hoping to team up with the business-friendly Free Democrats (FDP) this time around.
As leader of a centre-right government, Merkel has said she would pursue tax cuts and extend the life of nuclear plants that are scheduled to be phased out over the next decade.
Germany is emerging from its deepest recession since World War Two and the next government will have to rein in a surging budget deficit, cope with rising unemployment and confront fragile banks that are paring back lending and threatening the nascent recovery.
"It is really difficult at the moment. Ms Merkel is the only one of them who you could say really represents Germany," said Corinne Chenka.
The most likely alternative if the conservatives fail to get a centre-right majority is another "grand coalition" with the SPD, a partnership of rivals that had existed only once in the late 1960s before Merkel was forced into one in 2005.
This constellation would bring about a mixed reaction from voters.
"I don't want there to be another coalition but I hope we get something new, in whatever form this must be," one man told Reuters.
Another voter said the exact opposite.
"Another grand coalition wouldn't be bad," Katharina Riegenberg said.
Merkel worked surprisingly well with the SPD over the past four years, repairing ties with the United States after the strains of the Iraq war, consolidating the budget before the crisis hit and introducing stimulus packages worth 81 billion euros to fight off the downturn.
For Merkel's SPD challenger Frank-Walter Steinmeier a grand coalition is the only realistic hope of staying in government.
Polling in Germany was once a less tricky business. Due to long-term party allegiances and with just three parties running, pollsters could track shifts with astonishing accuracy.
Most voters made up their minds long before the election and only a fraction were still undecided on election day.
That all began to change with German unification in 1990, when eastern German voters without any long-term ties to the mainstream parties began switching allegiances from vote to vote. The swing vote trend has since spread to the west.
The emergence of the Greens party in the 1980s and the Left party after unification made it even harder for pollsters as there are now five, rather than three, party blocs in parliament.
In another twist to the election tale, Germany also boosted security at airports and train stations because of a heightened risk of attack linked to a federal election.
The German Interior Ministry said militant groups like al Qaeda could use the election as a stage for strikes to punish Germany for its deployment of troops in Afghanistan.
According to security officials two suspected new al Qaeda videos had played a role in raising the alert.
Three months ago a German magazine cited security officials as saying al Qaeda was planning a major attack on Germans before the election to wreak revenge for the deployment of troops in Afghanistan.
Unlike other European countries such as Britain or Spain, Germany has not experienced a major attack on its home soil in recent years.
Germany has a parliamentary mandate to send 4,500 soldiers to Afghanistan as part of a NATO force. - Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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