Physicist could bring hard-line tone to Germany
Tight race seen with Schroeder
by Colin Nickerson, Globe Staff
published September 18, 2005

BERLIN -- In an election that could bring profound changes to Europe's largest country, voters today seemed poised to catapult an enigmatic preacher's daughter from the former communist east to the nation's top political post.

Polls suggest that Angela Merkel -- a 51-year-old physicist dedicated to bolstering business, cutting social spending, and mending strategic ties with the United States -- would lead the right-leaning Christian Democrat party to form a new government, although perhaps only by a thin margin. Victory would make her Germany's first woman chancellor as well as the country's first leader raised behind the Iron Curtain.

But the contest between Merkel and incumbent Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, one of the most bitter in recent German history, appeared headed for a tight finish -- with an estimated 20 percent of voters still undecided on the eve of the election.
The stakes in the election are high. Germany's economy is a mess and many voters blame Schroeder for rampant joblessness and the large numbers of companies fleeing for countries with looser labor laws and lower taxes.

At the same time, voters say they are worried that Merkel -- often compared to the late Ronald Reagan and former British prime minister Margaret Thatcher -- would rush to transform this European welfare state into a land of dog-eat-dog capitalism.
''This may well be the most important election Europe has seen in decades," said Rockwell A. Schnabel, former US ambassador to the European Union.

The vote comes as the nation long regarded as the continent's economic engine is badly misfiring, registering hardly any growth in four years. The downturn is exacerbated by inequities in living standards between east and west despite the $1.5 trillion spent on national unification programs since the Berlin Wall came down in 1989.

Schroeder, who heads the left-centrist Social Democrats, has been unable to complete reforms -- such as overhauling the country's bloated social services system -- that most economists have long seen as necessary.

The local media have made much of the two candidates' contrasting styles: The two-term chancellor radiates charisma, while commentators note that Merkel doesn't so much grin for the television cameras as grimace.

Yet many Germans are latching onto Merkel's conservative message of more social belt-tightening and greater self-reliance.

''She appeals to the German brain, if not the German heart," said Gerd Langguth, professor of political science at the University of Bonn and author of a recent biography of Merkel. ''She doesn't inspire strong emotions. But she does inspire strong thinking about what is truly best for the nation."

Her prescription: hard-to- swallow medicine in the form of cuts in the country's generous social benefits, the lowering of minimum wages, and a foreign policy aimed at bringing Berlin into closer harmony with Washington.

Schroeder, elected chancellor in 1998, won reelection in 2002 largely because of his open antagonism toward the US-led war in Iraq. Merkel, by contrast, stirred outrage that year by arguing that the country should stick by the United States in its struggles.

But the Iraq war and relations with Washington do not loom as major issues in this election, called a year early after Schroeder's party suffered a humiliating defeat in a regional vote. Some analysts say Merkel's ascent has less to do with her worldview than with Schroeder's bumbling efforts to promote free-market measures -- efforts that have mainly served to alienate left-wingers in his own party while failing to win much support among moderates.

''Schroeder deserves applause for his attempt to initiate painful reforms," said Alfred Steinherr, a senior analyst at the German Institute for Economic Research, a think tank. ''But he doesn't seem to know where to go next."

Only a month ago, polls forecast an easy win for Merkel's party. But Schroeder, who has come from behind before, has regained ground by accusing his opponent of supporting ''inhuman" tax policies that would benefit the rich while picking the pockets of the country's 5 million unemployed.

Still, most polls suggest the Christian Democrats will secure enough seats to ensure that Merkel will be installed as chancellor -- although she may be forced to form a coalition government with Schroeder's Social Democrats. Such an alliance would make it tough to impose her vision.

''She probably has enough steam to get into the harbor . . . but whether she will have the power to overhaul the German system is, I think, quite unlikely," said Gero Neugebauer, professor of politics at the Free University of Berlin. ''Germans want some economic reforms, sure. But not Reaganomics that take away traditional strong social protections."

But other analysts predict Merkel's ascent to the chancellorship would mark a watershed for Germany. They say she has the iron will to successfully challenge powerful unions, welfare interests, and knee-jerk anti-Americanism.

''If Angela Merkel can win a substantial majority, she'll have the sort of extraordinary impact on Germany that Margaret Thatcher had [on Britain], literally turning the country around," said Schnabel, the former US ambassador. ''She's exactly what the country needs. She's dynamic, she's pro-business, and she's not afraid of free markets. Her election would not just shake up Germany, it would shake up Europe."

That view is shared by some German analysts.

''Angela Merkel believes fiercely that Germany needs a freer, more individualistic society, and more market-oriented economy, precisely because she grew up in the very opposite -- in the communist east," Langguth said.

Something of an enigma even after 15 years in Parliament, Merkel seldom discusses her family, her upbringing, or -- most intriguingly -- what caused her to quit the abstract realms of science for the beer-drenched, bare-knuckled hurly-burly of German politics.

The daughter of a Lutheran pastor, Merkel excelled in school, eventually earning a doctorate in physics. At 23, she married fellow physics student Ulrich Merkel -- a marriage that ended in divorce four years later. In 1998, she wed longtime live-in partner Joachim Sauer, a quantum chemist.

In 1989 she joined a grass-roots democracy group as communism came crashing down. She moved quickly up the political ladder, elected to Parliament in 1990 as a Christian Democrat.

Analysts describe Merkel as driven by intellectual antipathy toward state interference in economic areas, and -- like so many Europeans from the former Soviet bloc -- by an attraction to American-style ideals of individualism and self-reliance.

''She simply thinks hard work is better than handouts most of the time," said Steinherr, the economist. ''Ironically, that's become a rather radical position in Germany."

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