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.
In the sweltering streets of Jakarta, buskers carry towering, hollow puppets and pass around a bucket for donations. Now, they fear becoming outlaws. City authorities said they would crack down on use of the sacred ondel-ondel puppets, which can stand as tall as a truck, and they are drafting legislation to remove what they view as a street nuisance. Performances featuring the puppets — originally used by Jakarta’s Betawi people to ward off evil spirits — would be allowed only at set events. The ban could leave many ondel-ondel buskers in Jakarta jobless. “I am confused and anxious. I fear getting raided or even
Eleven people, including a former minister, were arrested in Serbia on Friday over a train station disaster in which 16 people died. The concrete canopy of the newly renovated station in the northern city of Novi Sad collapsed on Nov. 1, 2024 in a disaster widely blamed on corruption and poor oversight. It sparked a wave of student-led protests and led to the resignation of then-Serbian prime minister Milos Vucevic and the fall of his government. The public prosecutor’s office in Novi Sad opened an investigation into the accident and deaths. In February, the public prosecutor’s office for organized crime opened another probe into
RISING RACISM: A Japanese group called on China to assure safety in the country, while the Chinese embassy in Tokyo urged action against a ‘surge in xenophobia’ A Japanese woman living in China was attacked and injured by a man in a subway station in Suzhou, China, Japanese media said, hours after two Chinese men were seriously injured in violence in Tokyo. The attacks on Thursday raised concern about xenophobic sentiment in China and Japan that have been blamed for assaults in both countries. It was the third attack involving Japanese living in China since last year. In the two previous cases in China, Chinese authorities have insisted they were isolated incidents. Japanese broadcaster NHK did not identify the woman injured in Suzhou by name, but, citing the Japanese
RESTRUCTURE: Myanmar’s military has ended emergency rule and announced plans for elections in December, but critics said the move aims to entrench junta control Myanmar’s military government announced on Thursday that it was ending the state of emergency declared after it seized power in 2021 and would restructure administrative bodies to prepare for the new election at the end of the year. However, the polls planned for an unspecified date in December face serious obstacles, including a civil war raging over most of the country and pledges by opponents of the military rule to derail the election because they believe it can be neither free nor fair. Under the restructuring, Myanmar’s junta chief Min Aung Hlaing is giving up two posts, but would stay at the
RSS