Sep 21st 2013, 23:00, by online@ngrguardiannews.com (From Oghogho Obayuwana, Foreign Affairs Editor (in Berlin, Germany))
AFTER being on the saddle for eight years as German Chancellor, Angela Merkel's fabled but now troubled popularity would be confirmed or given a final beating Sunday when 61.6 million eligible voters cast their ballot to decide who would steer the ship of state in the world's fourth largest economy for the next four years.
Apart from practicing fiscal federalism, a system that allows the country's states- the Landers, to make and appropriate contributions to the sustenance of the centre, political ideas play a greater role than personalities in German elections.
In the days preceding the elections, national issues that affect the life of citizens, not blind power calculations and pursuits, have bobbed up to the top of discussions and debates, as various candidates step up their last minute campaign for the 18th German Bundestag.
Topping these issues is how to tackle the unemployment rate put at 5.3 per cent by July this year. The other issues are the Euro/financial crisis, inflation/prices (petrol) and minimum wage (s). There is also the matter of energy/environment/climate, social discrepancies, as well as pensions/old age security among others.
So close is this year's election that 48 hours to the exercise (Friday) 30 per cent of the voters were undecided as to which candidate to vote for, the country's Social Science Research Center confirmed to The Guardian.
There are not much fanfare and there are no truck load of supporters making some carnival noise. While local campaigning has remained important, five main parties have emerged as front liners in the run-up to the elections. Incumbent Merkel's who is seeking a third straight term is the candidate for the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) already in alliance with the Christian Social Union (CSU) which stands in elections in Bavaria.
The other candidates are Peer Steinbrueck - Social Democratic Party (SPD), Rainer Bruderle -Free Democratic Party (FDP). Catherine Goring-eckardt and Juergen Trittin are the joint candidates for Alliance 90 and the Green Party while Gregor Gysi is of the leftist party. Pundits are also excited about whether the German electorates would ignore the Alternative For Germany (AFD) party.
And they have all been engrossed in a robust series of debates. For instance, there are fiery house to house and street talks over having to pay more for electricity since the 2010 nuclear disaster in Fukushima, Japan led to an energy rethink that has led Merkel's government to embark on Energiewende or energy transformation.
An interesting debate also features the social and labour market policy as well as financial and taxation policies, which have since thrown up the issue of the minimum wage. In this regard, the election programme of SPD demands an across- the- board statutory minimum wage of 8.50 euros an hour while the CDU/CSU and even the FDP want lower wage limit, which entails employers and employees in different industries negotiating their respective lowest pay level.
Contentious as the issues like the continental finances, bail out and Eurobonds are, director of the European Academy, professor Eckart Stratenschulte told a team of international journalists that generally a candidate does not win or lose elections on international issues in Germany. "If there was a referendum on the euro, Germans would have voted against it". He added.
A German citizen who gave his name as Tobias Sammer who was trying to unhook his bicycle at Potsdamer Platz in Berlin, told The Guardian that he would not be voting today: "Ok, there are discussions about people who would prefer not to vote on Sunday. I am one of them. I am not interested. I have no particular reason. You can ask the government people why and also the other politicians. We see they are all the same."
Going into the elections, the spokesperson, Foreign Affairs and European Politics of the CDU, Gert Olav Gohs, maintained at a briefing: "Our problem is not that we are weak, our problem is maybe, we are too strong."
Germany is Europe's largest economy. Incumbent Angela Merkel has been named the world's most powerful woman by Forbes magazine. And Berlin is thought to be pivotal to solving a euro crisis that has presented the gravest threat to the European Union since its creation more than 50 years ago.
