Germany's rival politicians made their final pleas for votes on Saturday, the last day of campaigning for a tense election that is forecast to hand Chancellor Angela Merkel a second term in office. Merkel, 55, has won plaudits at home and abroad for her steady and calm 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.
But her centre-right party's lead over the centre-left Social Democrats (SPD) has shrunk recently and tension is rising as her hopes of governing with her preferred partners - the liberal Free Democrats (FDP) - hang by a thread. If Merkel's Christian Democrats (CDU) and the FDP do not secure a majority, the most likely outcome is a continuation of the "grand coalition" between the CDU and the SPD that has governed Germany uneasily for the past four years.
The SPD candidate, Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier, 53, judged to be a weak campaigner at first, has gained in confidence and issued a rousing clarion 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 enthusiastic, flag-waving audience, referring to Merkel's conservatives.
"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. For her part, Merkel was poised to give her final speech of the campaign at a rally in Berlin around 1000 GMT. Speaking in the US city of Pittsburgh, where she attended a summit of G20 leaders, she urged German voters to ditch the grand coalition.