Ten days before the Bundestag (federal) elections scheduled for September 27, the race pitting Chancellor Angela Merkel of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) against her foreign minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier of the Social Democratic Party (SPD), is suddenly tightening up. For a long time, the conventional wisdom in Germany had been that Angela Merkel--boosted by strong personal approval ratings--would be able to lead the conservative Christian Democratic Union/Christian Social Union parties to easy victory, join forces with the free-market FDP, and throw the unpopular "Grand Coalition" government with the left-wing SPD party into the dustbin of history.
Given the personal political styles of Merkel and Steinmeier, and the fact that both are currently sharing power in Berlin, the election campaign has been for the most part rather dull and uneventful, lacking the kind of sharp, polarizing clashes over Iraq or taxation policy that one could see during the 2002 and 2005 campaigns. No wonder that 25 to 30 percent of the voters have not yet made up their mind about which party they will eventually support. This time, in essence, Merkel has tried to capitalize on the "Chancellor bonus", successfully portraying herself as a middle-of-the-road "mother-of-the-nation" type who will make sure that the world's top exporter quickly recovers from the current economic crisis.
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