Rocked by ferocious attacks on her shadow finance minister just days before an election, German conservative leader Angela Merkel looked poised yesterday to rehabilitate a popular party heavyweight and former rival.
Merkel, who once appeared coasting towards a center-right coalition victory, has stumbled in the past 10 days as Social Democrat Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder has turned his fire on the radical tax plans of her finance expert Paul Kirchhof.
Merkel, in an interview published yesterday, appeared to endorse a suggestion from Kirchhof that the ideal finance team in a future government would be a "tandem" arrangement with prominent conservative politician Friedrich Merz.
It was unclear exactly what role might be played by Merz, who quit as party finance spokesman and deputy leader last year after a series of heated clashes with Merkel.
Talk of a Merz comeback, four days before Sunday's election, reflected conservative nerves in the face of a late surge by Schroeder, who is bidding to repeat his dramatic comeback victory at the 2002 election.
Polls this week show Merkel still well ahead of Schroeder but short of the majority she seeks to form a coalition with her preferred partners, the liberal Free Democrats.
That could force her to team up instead with Schroeder's Social Democrats, an outcome which many Germans seem to favor.
Financial markets doubt whether such a "grand coalition" could force through radical reforms to bring down the 11.6 percent jobless rate, spur growth and cut debt.
Merkel's choice of Kirchhof, a leading academic and lawyer but a political novice, has presented Schroeder with an irresistible target for attack.
Schroeder has portrayed him as a man living on another planet, and said he would reallocate wealth from the poor to the rich by taxing bus drivers at the same rate as millionaires.
"A uniform tax rate of 25 percent means a gigantic redistribution from the bottom to the top," Schroeder told Hanover's Neue Presse newspaper.
In a series of increasingly heated exchanges, Merkel has accused the chancellor of deliberately lying about conservative policy, which would cut income and payroll taxes while raising sales tax to 18 from 16 percent.
Schroeder insisted yesterday that he will not form an alliance with the new Left Party after this weekend's German election and dismissed as "absurd" speculation over other possible coalitions.
Buoyed by polls this month that have shown his party clawing back support, Schroeder said his aim was "for the Social Democrats to be the strongest party."
Merkel still appears likely to emerge as chancellor. But recent polls have raised the possibility that an alliance of Schroeder's current coalition -- the Social Democrats and Greens -- with the Left Party, a combination of ex-communists and former Social Democrats alienated by the chancellor's welfare state reforms, could garner enough support to rule together.
Still, all three parties have dismissed the idea of forming a three-way coalition, which would face major policy and personality clashes.
"Such a coalition is completely out of the question," Schroeder said, adding that "there will no form of collaboration" with the new party.
CONFRONTATION: The water cannon attack was the second this month on the Philippine supply boat ‘Unaizah May 4,’ after an incident on March 5 The China Coast Guard yesterday morning blocked a Philippine supply vessel and damaged it with water cannons near a reef off the Southeast Asian country, the Philippines said. The Philippine military released video of what it said was a nearly hour-long attack off the Second Thomas Shoal (Renai Shoal, 仁愛暗沙) in the contested South China Sea, where Chinese ships have unleashed water cannons and collided with Philippine vessels in similar standoffs in the past few months. The China Coast Guard and other vessels “once again harassed, blocked, deployed water cannons, and executed dangerous maneuvers” against a routine rotation and resupply mission to
GLOBAL COMBAT AIR PROGRAM: The potential purchasers would be limited to the 15 nations with which Tokyo has signed defense partnership and equipment transfer deals Japan’s Cabinet yesterday approved a plan to sell future next-generation fighter jets that it is developing with the UK and Italy to other nations, in the latest move away from the country’s post-World War II pacifist principles. The contentious decision to allow international arms sales is expected to help secure Japan’s role in the joint fighter jet project, and is part of a move to build up the Japanese arms industry and bolster its role in global security. The Cabinet also endorsed a revision to Japan’s arms equipment and technology transfer guidelines to allow coproduced lethal weapons to be sold to nations
Thousands of devotees, some in a state of trance, gathered at a Buddhist temple on the outskirts of Bangkok renowned for sacred tattoos known as Sak Yant, paying their respects to a revered monk who mastered the practice and seeking purification. The gathering at Wat Bang Phra Buddhist temple is part of a Thai Wai Khru ritual in which devotees pay homage to Luang Phor Pern, the temple’s formal abbot, who died in 2002. He had a reputation for refining and popularizing the temple’s Sak Yant tattoo style. The idea that tattoos confer magical powers has existed in many parts of Asia
ON ALERT: A Russian cruise missile crossed into Polish airspace for about 40 seconds, the Polish military said, adding that it is constantly monitoring the war to protect its airspace Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, and the western region of Lviv early yesterday came under a “massive” Russian air attack, officials said, while a Russian cruise missile breached Polish airspace, the Polish military said. Russia and Ukraine have been engaged in a series of deadly aerial attacks, with yesterday’s strikes coming a day after the Russian military said it had seized the Ukrainian village of Ivanivske, west of Bakhmut. A militant attack on a Moscow concert hall on Friday that killed at least 133 people also became a new flash point between the two archrivals. “Explosions in the capital. Air defense is working. Do not