As Germany's election campaign entered its last 72 hours, the opposition Social Democrats (SPD) claimed yesterday that they are on the verge of ousting Dr Helmut Kohl as chancellor.
The party's campaign manager, Mr Franz Muntefering, said that private polling during the past few days showed that the Chancellor was still trailing his challenger, Mr Gerhard Schroder and predicted that Germany is about to have a new government after 16 years of conservative rule.
"We are just a few metres away from our goal," he said.
Mr Muntefering's remarks came amid renewed squabbling among Dr Kohl's allies over the possibility that his Christian Democrats (CDU) could form a grand coalition with the SPD after the election.
The Chancellor surprised colleagues this week by declaring that such a coalition was an arrangement worth considering but he yesterday repeated an earlier vow not to lead such a government.
Mr Wolfgang Gerhard, the leader of Dr Kohl's junior partners in the Liberal Free Democrats (FDP) yesterday warned Christian Democrats against sharing power with the SPD. He claimed that the Social Democrats would be the sole beneficiaries of such a coalition and that they would block necessary economic reforms.
The FDP is struggling to win the 5 per cent of votes needed to enter the Bundestag, amid opinion poll evidence that a grand coalition of Social Democrats and Christian Democrats is becoming ever more likely.
Mr Gerhardt hopes to persuade CDU supporters to switch to the FDP as the best guarantee of keeping the present government in power.
"The head-to-head race will not be decided by the big parties, but by the FDP and the Greens," he said.
The latest opinion poll poll by the Forsa research institute yesterday gave the Christian Democrats 38 per cent while the SPD was on 42 per cent, unchanged from the previous day.
The FDP was down one point to 5 per cent, support for the Greens was unchanged at 6 per cent while the ex-communist Party of Democratic Socialism (PDS) was also steady at 4 per cent.
Meanwhile, Mr Schroder still enjoyed a comfortable lead over Dr Kohl in terms of personal approval with 39 per cent of those questioned saying the Social Democrat should be chancellor, compared to 27 per cent for Dr Kohl.
The campaign battleground yesterday was on the economy, with the Chancellor claiming that unemployment would be below four million when the September figures are published. But he contradicted his FDP Economics Minister, Mr Gunther Rexrodt, by admitting that Germany's economic growth was slowing.
The economics ministry has been predicting growth approaching 3 per cent this year and next, but Dr. Kohl conceded that it would be 2.7 per cent this year and only 2.5 per cent in 1999.
Mr Oskar Lafontaine, chairman of the SPD and a likely Finance Minister in a Schroder-led government, said that one of his first steps would be to work with London and Paris to stabilise international financial markets.
"Immediately after a change of power, a government led by Gerhard Schroder would start an initiative together with London and Paris to achieve stabilisation of international financial markets. In this monetary system the euro will become a new anchor of stability next to the dollar.
"It is also necessary to reform the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank and improve supervision of international credit," he said.
The government poured scorn on Mr Lafontaine's proposal, which the Chancellery Minister, Mr Friedrich Bohl, described as outmoded and without any chance of success internationally.
"Unachievable expectations are raised by such careless statements as expressed now by Lafontaine that can only serve to create uncertainty on financial markets. Apparently the SPD is aiming to turn back the clock in this area as well," he said.
