DEJA VU has hit the campaign of German chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democrats (CDU) two days before election day, with the lead for her preferred coalition melting away in opinion polls.
Two separate polls show that 46to 48 per cent of voters now back her preferred centre-right administration with the liberal Free Democrats (FDP), a two-point drop in a week.
This decrease, similar to a late fade in 2005, leaves Dr Merkel hovering at the 47 per cent analysts say will be needed for a CDU-FDP coalition.
Just one-third of voters now expect a CDU-FDP government, according to a poll for the Handelsblattnewspaper, while 43 per cent expect a second grand coalition between the CDU and the Social Democrats (SPD).
Continuing a two-week upward trend, the SPD has put on four points to 27 per cent, although it is still a long way from the 35 per cent it achieved in 2005.
With Ms Merkel at the G20 summit in Pittsburgh, CDU campaigners around Germany have started a 72-hour final campaign to avoid a repeat of 2005.
“It was always clear that it was going to be a tight election,” said a chastened CDU general secretary Ronald Pofalla yesterday.
“We hope to speak to at least 1.5 million people in the last 72 hours, above all undecided voters who normally vote CDU.”
In the last three general elections the CDU has faded just before the finish line. In 2005, Dr Merkel’s comfortable lead evaporated in the final days and her party finished just one point ahead.
The SPD candidate, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, took time out from his campaign yesterday to enjoy a moment of schadenfreude, suggesting the CDU's love affair with Angela Merkel might come to a bumpy end if it finishes below its 2005 result.
"In any case, I expect an internal discussion because for the umpteenth time [they] were so sure of a CDU-FDP majority only for nothing to come of it," he told Spiegel Online. "Their arrogant attitude in the last weeks won't find a majority."
Two great uncertainties hang over all opinion polls and Sunday’s election: how many people will stay at home, and the eventual decision of the one-in-four who still do not know how they will vote. The two groups – disillusioned non-voters and undecideds – can be found everywhere, even outside Angela Merkel’s Berlin home. “I’ll decide once I go into the booth on Sunday,” said one of the policemen watching her apartment block opposite Berlin’s Pergamon Museum.
That prompts a snort from his colleague. “I tore up all my wife’s campaign leaflets last night and threw them in the bin, telling her I’m not voting,” he says.
Asked why, the policeman launches into an emotional monologue about stagnant German salaries, a lack of political interest in helping families and shrinking police budgets.
“We even have to buy our own gloves and long johns so that we don’t freeze out here during the -15 degree winter nights,” he says.
Apart from the odd “Guten Morgen”, Angela Merkel has no contact with the two problem voters on her own doorstep.
Yesterday, the German leader reiterated her central campaign promise that, with an FDP partner, she would push through a “moderate easing of the [tax] burden”.
“The debts won’t grow smaller that way, I know, but it would be worse to remain at a too low economic level with a long-term lower tax take,” she told the Frankfurter Rundschau newspaper.
“In the 1930s crisis, the Americans shifted too quickly from economic stimulus to austerity and prolonged the crisis. We’re at an awkward phase at the moment with delicate growth. That’s why I don’t think much of momentary calls for austerity measures.”
In the final days of the campaign, with their famous resident not at home, the police officers watching Ms Merkel’s apartment say they that do not care about the election outcome.
Making sure he is out of ear-shot of his colleague, one of them adds: “At least in olden days kings and queens used to disguise themselves and go among the people to hear what they thought of them,” he said. “Merkel is out of touch and I don’t think she cares.”