Germany's conservative challenger Angela Merkel last night scored a decisive victory over chancellor Gerhard Schröder in the only live debate of the German election campaign. In a gripping 90-minute TV duel, Mrs Merkel repeatedly got the better of a stumbling Schröder - telling Germans that the only way to get the country out of its present mess was to vote for her Christian Democrat party. "You can't be satisfied with the situation in this country," she told the chancellor bluntly. "I don't see anything in your programme to address this."Mr Schröder for his part accused Mrs Merkel of unfairly rubbishing Germany's economy - which was improving thanks to his reforms. "What you're saying about the economy overlooks that Germany has become the world's top exporter in the last three years," he said.
But the chancellor looked distinctly uncomfortable during much of the debate, and had a terrible opening few minutes. "She was the clear winner," Jochen Thies, a senior political correspondent with Deutschland Radio said last night. "She was simply better than Schröder. She was good on the detail, and when she attacked. I think after this the gap between the two of them will widen, when the 20% of undecided voters realise Schröder was the loser.'
Some 20 million German households tuned into last night's debate, making it the country's biggest TV event since Germany lost to Brazil in the 2002 World Cup final. Before the clash Mr Schröder - an accomplished media performer - was widely expected to do better than his conservative rival. In the event, though, Mrs Merkel appeared both quicker and more confident. She even made a joke. Asked whether it was thanks to Mr Schröder's liberal red-green government that it was now possible for a woman to become German chancellor, she replied: "No." Referring to the fact she was born in West Germany but grew up in the communist east, she added: "I'm a product of German reunification and I'm a product of my parents. I'm proud of both."
Last night Mr Schröder could take some consolation from opinion polls after the debate which suggested he had won a narrow victory. But opinion polls over the weekend gave Mrs Merkel's CDU party a decisive lead with 43% of the vote, according to Der Spiegel magazine. Mr Schröder's Social Democratic party (SPD) has gone up one per cent to 32%, with its coalition partner the Greens on 7%. Germany's new Left party is on 9%, while Mrs Merkel's coalition partner, the liberal Free Democrats (FDP), is on 6%. With record numbers of German voters still undecided, however, a "grand coalition" between Mrs Merkel's conservatives and Mr Schröder's Social Democrats is still a possibility.
| But not real likely, I'd guess... |
Looking relaxed in a black suit with white buttons, Mrs Merkel said that she and an increasing number of voters believed in a Europe with clear boundaries. This didn't include Turkey, she said. In a closing address to the cameras, she said that if voters were happy with Mr Schröder's record on jobs, growth and pensions over the past seven years they should vote for him. If they thought Germany could do better, however, they should vote for her.
Three years ago, Mr Schröder's nimble performance in the second of two TV debates against his then challenger Edmund Stoiber helped vault him to a dramatic victory. Mr Schröder was consistently behind in the polls but won after criticising the Bush administration's decision to invade Iraq. Before last night's duel Mrs Merkel resisted pressure from Mr Schröder's camp to meet for two TV debates, though the two candidates will meet again during a round-table discussion. Germany's four leading public and private channels all broadcast the debate simultaneously - an arrangement, some said, that made Germany look a bit like a Stalinist state. "The same image on four channels. It feels like North Korea," Nikolaus Brender, editor-in-chief for the ZDF public sector network, one of the organisers, admitted before the duel started.
| I guess he's pissed at missing his Gilligan's Island reruns... |