MUNICH -- A year ago, Angela Merkel, Germany's charming new chancellor, was in the final phase of her election campaign. The incumbent, Gerhard Schroeder, lagged so far behind her Christian Democrats (CDU) in public opinion polls that she thought she would win a landslide victory and could therefore afford to expound on the cruelties of the liberal austerity program delineated in her electoral campaign. She even announced a value-added tax increase (which her new government has, indeed, decided to implement in 2007).
But German voters did not appreciate her honesty. When she named law professor Paul Kirchhoff, who advocated a flat tax, as her candidate for finance minister, Merkel's electoral cakewalk turned into a nightmare. She lost nearly her entire lead, and in the end won by only a tiny margin -- a margin too small to form her preferred coalition with the liberal Free Democrats.
Instead, she had to form a coalition with Schroeder's Social Democrats (SPD), though without Schroeder himself.