Merkel scraps for votes in final election drive

BERLIN — Chancellor Angela Merkel made an 11th-hour push for votes Saturday, on the eve of an election expected to return her to power but perhaps not in the new coalition she wants.

"We are going to fight to the end because every vote counts," she told a crowd of around 1,000 people waving orange "Angie" placards and chanting "Angie, Angie."

"We are the only party in Germany to govern the economy sensibly," she said, adding: "Voters will decide tomorrow how quickly we get out of this crisis."

"We are fighting for the German jobs of the future."

Merkel, 55, has won plaudits at home and abroad for steady leadership through the crisis that has hit Europe's top economy harder than most, and surveys indicate Germans are in no mood for change at the top.

"This pastor's daughter from the east has governed with such self-confidence in the past four years that many of the 62.2 million voters will choose her even though they do not like her party. They want Merkel," commented the daily Sueddeutsche Zeitung.

But her conservative party's lead over the centre-left Social Democrats (SPD) has shrunk and tension is rising as her hopes of governing with her preferred partners, the pro-business Free Democrats (FDP), hang by a thread.

If Merkel's Christian Democrats (CDU) and the FDP do not clinch a majority, the most likely outcome is another awkward "grand coalition" between the CDU and the SPD that has governed Germany since the inconclusive 2005 election.

But Merkel insisted: "We can only have stability with a coalition between a strong Union and the FDP," referring to her conservative party.

The SPD candidate, Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier, judged to be a weak campaigner at first, has gained in confidence and issued a rousing call to some 10,000 supporters late Friday at Berlin's Brandenburg Gate.

"The Union is getting more nervous by the day," Steinmeier told his flag-waving audience.

"The big lead they had has melted like ice in the sunshine. We will keep fighting for every vote until the last second on Sunday at 6:00 pm," when polling stations close.

But the final campaign rallies took place amid heightened security throughout the country following a series of messages from Islamic militants warning Germany over its continued presence in war-torn Afghanistan.

In a statement with German subtitles considered by experts to be a warning of a forthcoming attack, Al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden told European countries to withdraw from Afghanistan, where Germany has around 4,200 troops as part of a NATO force.

This was quickly followed by another video threatening Germany with attacks if it did not pull out of Afghanistan, this time from a German-speaking Taliban militant who called himself "Ajjub."

Speaking in German, Ajjub said: "Because of your commitment here against Islam, attacking Germany has become an attractive idea for us, the mujahideen," according to an interior ministry spokesman.

The militant said it was only a matter of time "before jihad destroys German walls" and the video showed photos of some famous German sites such as the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin and Cologne Cathedral.

The unpopular mission in Afghanistan is just one of a host of problems the winner of Sunday's election with have to face, along with a record mountain of debt and Germany's worst slump in output for more than 60 years.

"Whoever receives from the voters the task of governing will need a great deal of strength, courage and optimism to overcome the challenges that lie before him, or her," Hanover's Neue Presse daily said in an editorial on Saturday.