BERLIN, 18 September 2005 — Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder and conservative challenger Angela Merkel broke with the long-standing tradition against campaigning on the eve of elections and went yesterday to Germany’s most populous state to stump for last-minute support in what has shaped up to be an extremely tight vote.
Amid polls showing some 25 percent of voters still undecided, Schroeder and Merkel hit North Rhine-Westphalia to push their competing visions.
Schroeder touched on all of his major themes in a 20-minute speech to 10,000 people in Recklinghausen, highlighting his opposition to the US-led invasion of Iraq and the development of closer ties with France and Russia as foreign policy triumphs.
His voice hoarse from campaigning, Schroeder defended his labor market and welfare reforms while criticizing Merkel’s plans to streamline the tax system and take labor reforms further. He urged the party faithful to bring out any undecided voters they know. “Think about bringing grandma and grandpa with you,” Schroeder said. “But only if they’re going to vote for the SPD.”
In Bonn, Merkel pushed her plans to create jobs and accelerate economic reforms, emphasizing that during the Social Democrats’ rule, Germany saw the number of jobless rise above 5 million for the first time since World War II and has a current 11.4 percent unemployment rate.
“Vote for change because Germany needs a future,” Merkel told a cheering crowd of some 7,000.
Recent polls put Merkel’s Christian Democrats well ahead, but Schroeder’s Social Democrats have made up enough ground in the last weeks that it might become impossible for her to form her preferred coalition with the pro-business Free Democrats.
That has led to widespread speculation that the Christian Democrats instead may be forced into a so-called “grand coalition” with Schroeder’s party — an uneasy alliance that would almost certainly exclude Schroeder and that many fret may lead to deadlock.
Merkel told voters that a grand coalition was the last thing Germany needed, and played on fears that Schroeder may pull the new Left Party — a combination of disgruntled left-wing former Social Democrats and the former East German communist party — into league with him and the Greens in a gambit to hold on to power.
