Germany goes to the polls

German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder was today seeking a second term in national elections dominated by tensions with the US over Iraq and a minister’s comparison of President George W Bush with Adolf Hitler.

Even with the White House conflict and attacks by conservative challenger Edmund Stoiber, Mr Schroeder’s emphatic stand against threatening Iraq with war has fallen on fertile ground among the more than 61 million voters.

The unusually harsh rhetoric is credited with helping him claw back into the race with the Bavarian governor. Polls showed the race between Mr Schroeder’s Social Democrats and Mr Stoiber’s Christian Democrats is one of post-war Germany’s tightest.

But the final days left Mr Schroeder engulfed in an embarrassing row after a newspaper quoted his justice minister as saying that Mr Bush, like Hitler, was threatening war to distract from domestic problems.

The minister, Herta Daeubler-Gmelin, denied making the personal link and Mr Schroeder wrote the US President a conciliatory letter.

The letter got a lukewarm reception in Washington, and the incident has further soured relations already strained by Mr Schroeder’s insistence that any war to oust Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein would be a mistake.

Mr Stoiber took the ammunition as he wound up his campaign, previously focused on blasting Mr Schroeder for the sluggish economy and unemployment.

He accused the Chancellor in a newspaper interview yesterday of “whipping up emotions against our most important ally” for electoral gain and pledged to make up with Washington if elected.

Closing his own campaign yesterday in the northern city of Rostock, Mr Schroeder emphasised his argument that the UN should test Saddam’s offer to readmit weapons inspectors.

“The Middle East, including Iraq, needs a lot of peace but not a new war,” he shouted.

With two big and three smaller parties competing today, the Free Democrats could resume the kingmaker’s role they played in most post-war governments.

None of the two major parties – the governing Social Democrats and the conservative Christian Democrats in alliance with the Bavarian-only Christian Social Union – is expected to win a majority in the new downsized 598-seat Bundestag, which elects the chancellor.

The major party best able to form a stable coalition – not necessarily the one with the most votes – will lead the next government.

Mr Schroeder, 58, has governed with the Greens since unseating Helmut Kohl in 1998 and ending 16 years of conservative rule. He says he wants another four years with the party, headlined by foreign minister Joschka Fischer – Germany’s most popular politician.

Mr Stoiber, 60, has embraced the Free Democrats as he ran for national office after governing Bavaria for nine years.

Also defending parliamentary seats are the former East German communists, who hope to make more inroads among leftist voters in richer west Germany who are disillusioned with the Social Democrats’ shift toward the political centre under Mr Schroeder.

Germans cast two votes today, one directly for a local candidate and one for a party. The party vote is critical because it determines the percentage of seats each party wins in the Bundestag.

To enter parliament, parties must either win 5% of the vote or at least three seats directly.

In the current 669-seat legislature, Mr Schroeder’s Social Democrats hold 298 seats, the Christian Democrats/CSU 245, the Greens 47, the Free Democrats 43 and the ex-communists 36.