Interesting article in today's (13 Sept 2005) Wall St. Journal, predicting that the Christian Democrats will not, as had been anticipated, get an outright majority in Sunday's election, even with the support of the FDP. Therefore they may form a coalition with the Social Democrats, their main rivals. The article also predicts that such a coalition will likely not last, since the CDU has been drifting to the right and the SPD drifting to the left.

There is a possibility that there would be some "horse trading", according to Eckart Tuchtfeld, an economist at Commerzbank. For instance, in exchange for accepting some "loosening of job-protection laws" (with the supposed goal to help the unemployed find work), the CDU would agree to minimum wages in some industries and to "raising east Germans' unemployment benefits to the same level as west Germans'.''

I think it would be particularly worthwhile to get the views of our German Mudcatters on election prospects, especially as to whether they think a "Grand Coalition" shows much promise.