Merkel Parades Shadow Cabinet As Election Nears

Germany's conservative leader, Angela Merkel, yesterday presented her campaign team for next month's general election, shrugging off remarks by a colleague who had described east German voters as "stupid cows".

Mrs Merkel, the leader of Germany's Christian Democrats, yesterday introduced nine members of her team who are likely to play leading roles in any Merkel-led cabinet.

Describing them as a "strong troop", she said German voters faced a clear choice - between the failed policies of Germany's Social Democrat chancellor, Gerhard Schröder, and her own agenda for change.

"Our country needs change. Our voters face a decision on the nation's direction," she declared at Konrad-Adenauer-Haus, her party's Berlin HQ.

"I have the greatest respect for the voters. I'm optimistic that we can win, and get the coalition we want."

Standing next to Mrs Merkel was Edmund Stoiber, the troublesome grey-haired leader of the CDU's Bavarian sister party, the CSU, whose latest gaffe might just ruin Mrs Merkel's chances. Mr Stoiber last week dubbed east German voters as "stupid cows" after polls revealed that 30% of east Germans were preparing to vote for a new leftwing party.

Yesterday Mr Stoiber refused to elaborate. He merely said: "German voters now have to decide whether they want further decline, or for the country to re-emerge."

Many suspect that Mr Stoiber's comments were a deliberate attempt to undermine Mrs Merkel - who stood aside at Germany's last general election in 2002 to allow him to challenge Mr Schröder. Mr Stoiber narrowly lost - and has done little to disguise his bitterness ever since.

With just over four weeks to go until Germans vote on September 18, the latest surveys suggest that Mrs Merkel is still well-placed to win and become Germany's first woman chancellor. Her conservatives are on 43%, with Schröder's Social Democrats lagging behind on 29%, a poll for the Forsa Institute showed yesterday.

Support for the new Left party - an alliance of the former East German communists and Social Democrat defectors - was down two percentage points, polling 10%.

Mrs Merkel's CDU has also regained its position as the strongest party in Germany's former communist east, despite the Bavarian premier's comments, the poll showed. Mr Schröder's coalition partner, the Greens, remain on 7%, with the FDP - the CDU's small liberal coalition partner - also unchanged on 7%.

With large numbers of German voters still undecided, it is still not clear whether Mrs Merkel will be able to assemble her preferred centre-right coalition, or will instead be forced into an uncomfortable "grand coalition" with the Social Democrats.

Yesterday Mrs Merkel sought to beef up her reformist credentials by offering a campaign team that included a radical tax reformer, a law-and-order hardliner and a mother of seven. Her most striking choice was that of Paul Kirchhof, a balding former constitutional judge who advocates a radical new flat tax in Germany of just 25%.

Mrs Merkel also held out yesterday the prospect of better relations with Washington with the appointment of Wolfgang Schäuble as her foreign affairs adviser. Mr Schäuble travelled last month to the US on a fence-mending mission.

"European unity and transatlantic partnership are not opposites," Mrs Merkel said.