Shaky Alliances

Ever since German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder announced plans in May for snap elections this fall, it was a given that Angela Merkel would boot the Social Democrats out of office. But now, with the campaign in full swing, it's beginning to look as though her only option will be to form a cumbersome grand coalition with her political opponents.

For now, Merkel's Christian Democrats (cdu) are still ahead of Schröder's Social Democrats — by 13 points in the Election Research Group's latest weekly poll for zdf television. But missteps by the cdu and its sister party, the Bavarian Christian Social Union, are making it unlikely that, if elected, Merkel will be able to form a coalition with the pro-business Free Democrats (fdp). Instead, they might be forced to form a coalition with the spd, which many analysts fear could stall economic reforms. "Her campaign now has serious problems," says Jürgen Falter, political scientist at the University of Mainz.

Merkel has tripped several times out of the starting gate. She floated the idea of raising the country's 16% value-added tax to help pay for social security benefits; voters hate the idea of paying higher taxes. An attempt to smarten up her image — party spin doctors ensured sweat stains under her arms were digitally removed from photographs taken at the Bayreuth Festival — backfired when the unretouched photo was widely published. And then, in a live television interview in July, Merkel confused net and gross wages when calculating how her plans to cut nonwage costs would affect the cost of labor in Germany.

Her Bavarian ally Edmund Stoiber, who lost to Schröder in the 2002 election, is not helping matters. He lashed out at eastern German voters, who could tip the election. Stoiber regretted that "not all parts of the German population are as clever as Bavarians" and said he cannot accept "that the east determines who becomes Chancellor." Merkel was forced to reprimand Stoiber publicly. Schröder may be laughing at the cdu's blunders now, but Merkel may yet have the last laugh.