Battle for votes as German election race gets tighter

GERMAN Chancellor Angela Merkel and her rivals scrambled for last-minute votes yesterday before an election that will decide the coalition that must pull Europe’s top economy out of its worst post-war crisis.

Barring a huge election day surprise tomorrow, the popular Merkel — Forbes magazine’s world’s most powerful woman for the past four years — was expected to win a second term at the helm of the world’s number-two exporter.

But the country was spooked by the third German-language video in a week by a militant believed to have links to al-Qaida, days after he threatened attacks in Germany over the country’s military mission in Afghanistan.