German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder and his conservative rival Angela Merkel slugged it out till the last vote in the inconclusive national election on Friday ahead of a delayed ballot in Dresden.
The voting in a district of the eastern city today will decide the final seats in the Bundestag lower house of parliament after the messy elections on Sept. 18 which gave Merkel's Christian Democrats a three-seat advantage over Schroeder's Social Democrats, but no governing majority.
The election was delayed for two weeks in Dresden by the death of a neo-Nazi candidate during the election campaign, but the results will not change the overall picture from the general election.
However they could have an impact on negotiations to form a grand coalition government encompassing both of the main parties which increasingly seems the likeliest way out of the deadlock.
Campaigning on Friday, Merkel relaunched her attack on Schroeder's record of seven years in government, telling a crowd that the country could no longer afford to lose more than 1,000 jobs a day.
"We want to give young people a chance to have a career and people over 50 the hope of staying employed or finding a new job," a tired-looking Merkel said to lukewarm applause.
Three days ahead of the anniversary of German reunification, Merkel said "much has been achieved in 15 years" since east and west were sewn back together but the country has failed to seize all its opportunities under the Social Democrats.
The chancellor, who is refusing to bow out despite losing to Merkel by a fraction of a percentage on Sept. 18, retorted in a speech elsewhere in Dresden that Germany needed his party back in power to pursue its policies, notably its economic reforms.
He accused his rival of spreading pessimism, saying the Social Democrats were a "counter to this nonsense".
While the idea of a grand coalition appears more likely by the day, the burning question remains of who will lead the biggest country in the EU.
Schroeder claims he still has a mandate for a third term as chancellor, but Merkel said her alliance won the election and therefore she should govern.
"The biggest political party in a coalition has the prerogative to put forward a chancellor," she said in an interview with the Saechsische Zeitung newspaper on Friday.
Merkel added that the negotiations to form a grand coalition would only begin once a decision had been made on who will be chancellor.
Schroeder however told the same newspaper that the chancellery issue should form part of the bargaining.
"We cannot say that the negotiations will only begin once we have made concessions," he said.
The Social Democrats meanwhile poured cold water on claims from the conservatives that Schroeder would stand aside after the Dresden vote.
And it was announced that Schroeder is to visit Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero on Wednesday, suggesting he intends to still be head of government at that point.
Although three seats are at stake in the district of Dresden concerned by today's voting, the Christian Democrats can at worst only lose one seat because of the complex electoral system which is a mixture of the majority and proportional systems.
RSS