GERMANY: The hustings show that the German electorate wants a change, writes Derek Scally in Rostock.
The press pass for the Social Democrat election rally doesn't mention the SPD or the September 18th election, but reads: "Gerhard Schröder Tour."
Around 7,000 people have gathered in the pretty town square of Rostock, the eastern German city on the Baltic sea, to see the big man himself.
He springs onto the stage looking the same as always: blue shirtsleeves and a full head of hair, still chestnut after all these years. When he speaks, it's in his familiar hustings growl.
After a sweaty half-hour, a lock of hair drops almost on cue onto his forehead. But by that stage it's become clear that, whether Mr Schröder wants it or not, this is a farewell tour.
Fond applause greets his greatest hits. "Social Justice" is the one about how he reformed the country without sticking it to the little guy; "Military Misadventures" is about how he kept our boys out of Iraq.
He strolls through his set list of familiar SPD hits since 1998 - more money for education and research; better position of women; Germany as world export leader. There's little mention of the less popular numbers: unemployment, which is a million higher than in 1998, or a record federal debt. His reform programme, unveiled in the run-up to the last general election, gets a cursory mention.
"The reforms need time to work," he says, as if it were a song that grows on you after a few hearings. But the reforms were never popular in Rostock, a city where more than one in five is out of work and huge numbers commute to the west to work, or have even moved west permanently. In three weeks' time it's likely Mr Schröder's Social Democrats will finish third in eastern states behind the Christian Democrats (CDU) and the new Left Party, which unites eastern reformed communists and western left-wingers.
Mr Schröder tries to drag his act into the present and the future, delivering a jittery riff about the pretender to the throne, Angela Merkel of the CDU. Her election proposals - from a VAT hike and health-system reform to radical flat-tax proposals - are socially unjust because they will, without exception, "burden the general director and his cleaning lady alike", Schröder says.
"Köhl and Merkel slept through the developments of the 1990s. The ghosts of yesterday cannot organise the awakening of tomorrow." Neither can he, say German voters in the opinion polls, where over 60 per cent are looking for a change and the SPD-led government is 13 points behind the CDU-led alternative.
At the end of his speech, Mr Schröder raises his clasped hands over his head, signifying something, but not victory.
His gaze lacks its usual gleam of satisfaction as he realises the crowd is responding - but not as he wants.
"Schröder's given some wonderful speeches over the years, but we need more than that now. We need jobs and growth and people don't trust Schröder to deliver that anymore," says Hans-Joachim Block (58), a long-time SPD man who is planning to vote CDU.
"The CDU has more economic nous - they have the business contacts - plus their post-election plans are more realistic," says his wife, Bärbel (57). "Schröder always makes a good impression and Merkel may ring less bells, but she is serious about getting the job done." Her husband agrees. "Schröder always followed his stomach. It's time for someone more clever, a scientist like Merkel, who thinks things through to the end."
Behind him, roadies dismantle the stage and the Gerhard Schröder Farewell Tour rolls on.