It's 100 days until Germany's general elections and, barring a major reversal of fortune, the only remaining question is not whether Angela Merkel will again be chancellor, but with whom will she build a government. The answer has long-ranging implications on how the country will navigate itself out of a deep recession: Merkel will either govern with her current center-left partners– and rivals – who favor heavy government spending and extra padding for Germany's traditional social safety net, or a small, pro-business party that champions a hands-off economic approach. Merkel, a Protestant minister's daughter from the East who became the nation's first female chancellor in 2005, appears to have won over the nation with her down-to-earth, pragmatic approach. Polls show she would win 53 percent of the vote if chancellors were elected directly. Her center-right Christian Democratic Union, or CDU, also has a clear lead with about three months until Sept. 27 balloting. They earned 35 percent support in the most recent poll conducted by the Forsa Institute and published Thursday. That is far ahead of the center-left coalition partners the Social Democrats, who garnered a near record-low of 21 percent in the Forsa poll after their worst-ever showing in a nationwide ballot this month in the European parliamentary elections. Germans tend to stick with what they know in times of crisis and many feel the chancellor has successfully managed the global economic downturn by: • Passing two economic stimulus packages worth €73 billion. • Orchestrating a state-takeover of troubled lender Hypo Real Estate. • Throwing car maker Opel a €1.5 billion line to save it from seeking bankruptcy protection along with its former owner, General Motors. Nevertheless, the Christian Democrats' lead is nowhere near enough to constitute a majority in the 598-seat lower house of Parliament. Merkel needs a partner and has clearly stated she prefers a tie-up with her party's traditional mate, the centrist and pro-business Free Democrats, or FDP. Out of power since 1998, which saw an end to a 16-year run of CDU-FDP leadership, the pro-business Free Democrats earned 15 percent support from the 2,501 people Forsa polled. The telephone survey had a margin of error of plus or minus 2 percent. Although the chancellor scolded the party last weekend for “promising voters the moon” – with their calls for tax cuts, pay raises for doctors and a trimming of the budget deficit – she has repeatedly stressed they remain her top choice. The only other real option are the Social Democrats, which would mean a return to the so-called “grand coalition” of the nation's two largest parties that resulted after Merkel's paper-thin victory in 2005 over the SPD incumbent, Gerhard Schroeder. Since then the Social Democrats, the traditional champions of workers, have seen their popularity erode and their leadership flounder. Their candidate for the chancellory, Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier, has so far failed to convince voters he is more of a leader than a long-serving bureaucrat. He slipped in the Forsa poll to only 20 percent support if chancellors were to be elected directly. Coupled with the Free Democrats, Merkel could form a government with a clear 50 percent majority, allowing her to push through the tax cuts her party is counting on to ease the strain on the middle class. The CDU, along with their Bavaria-only sister party, the Christian Social Union, are to announce their election program on June 28.
