Barack Obama might have unrivalled expertise about the U.S. electorate. But the American president showed he’s something of a fish out of water when it comes to the complex world of German politics — where the seeming winners sometimes end up losing and the losers can end up in power with the right alliance.

Obama recently told Germany’s conservative Chancellor Angela Merkel to stop worrying about the Sept. 27 election: “Ah, you’ve already won. I don’t know what you always worry about,” Obama told her in comments captured by a German TV camera at the White House as the two were on their way to a joint news conference.

Merkel looked surprised by his comments — she knows that she doesn’t have anything in the bag yet — even with what might appear to outsiders to be a comfortable 12- to 17-point lead in opinion polls over her main rivals, the Social Democrats, with just 7 weeks left before the election.

Why is that?

Because under Germany’s “fiendishly complex proportional system” , Merkel’s conservatives could beat her rival Frank-Walter Steinmeier’s SPD and still end up without the centre-right coalition they want — or even more dramatically they could win the vote but end up losing power completely.

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Having your car worth 93,000 euros ($132,000) stolen while you’re on holiday in Spain is bad enough.

But if you’re a German government minister whose party is already facing an uphill battle just two months before a federal election, it’s even worse.

All that misfortune can turn into a veritable nightmare when the German electorate only learns about your private use of the luxury government car on holiday as an unintentional consequence of the theft.

With a dearth of news during the summer doldrums, German media have pounced upon the revelation that Health Minister Ulla Schmidt’s Mercedes was stolen in Spain last week. They’re asking why on earth did the Social Democrat (SPD) minister need her armoured limo and its chauffeur in the Spanish resort - click for story here. The chauffeur drove the car 2,300 km from Berlin to Alicante while Schmidt flew there.

German government rules allow ministers to use their official cars privately but they are obliged to pay for the private use. Schmidt’s spokeswoman said she needed the limo in Spain because she has two business appointments there during her two-week holiday. Schmidt was tracked down by German television on Monday evening in Spain: “I use the official car at times on holiday and pay for that. I keep track of every private journey in a logbook,” Schmidt said. “I’ve been doing that for the last 8-1/2 years and there was never any fuss about it.”

So why all the fuss now?

Schmidt’s misfortune is really bad news for Frank-Walter Steinmeier, the SPD’s candidate for chancellor in the Sept. 27 federal election. His SPD is already trailing Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservatives by more than 10 percentage points. Steinmeier returns to work from his own holiday in the Italian Alps on Wednesday and was hoping to jump-start his struggling campaign.

But the uproar over Schmidt’s use of her government car is an unneeded roadblock for Steinmeier.

(Photo: Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier (L) and German Health Minister Ulla Schmidt in Berlin, Sept. 16, 2008.  Reuters/Johannes Eisele)

A technical fault at a German nuclear power station has thrown a spotlight on one of the few issues that divide the two main parties before September’s election — atomic energy.

But the anti-nuclear Social Democrats (SPD), who have shared power with Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservatives since 2005, may be disappointed if they had hoped to win votes from it.

Merkel, forced to accept a phaseout of Germany’s atomic plants under its coalition deal with the SPD, is campaigning on extending the lifespan of nuclear plants which are deemed safe.

By contrast, the SPD is committed to the phaseout which it introduced in a previous alliance with the Greens, and Saturday’s failed restart at the ageing Kruemmel plant in northern Germany has galvanised some of its members into action.

The SPD, trailing Merkel’s conservative camp by more than 16 percentage points and at risk of losing its role in government, is trying to do all it can to mobilise its traditional supporters before the Sept. 27 vote.

SPD Environment Minister Sigmar Gabriel pounced on the incident, swiftly taking to the airwaves to push his case that the phaseout should be accelerated. And on Wednesday a Berlin newspaper was strategically leaked a government statement, albeit from 2006-07, which said safety standards at older plants like Kruemmel were not as high as at more modern reactors.

Germans have for decades nurtured an aversion to atomic energy, which supplies just under 30 percent of their power needs.

But as other European countries have started to revive nuclear, opinion has started to shift due mainly to higher energy prices and fears about supply. Pollsters say Germans are now pretty evenly split on whether to support a later decommissioning of plants.

In their campaign manifesto, conservatives argue nuclear is an important part of the energy mix, at least until renewable sources are fully commercially viable.

“If the SPD tries to make this a big election topic, it will not have much success. Public opinion is moving towards an acceptance of atomic energy,” said Klaus-Peter Schoeppner, head of Emnid pollsters.

By Sara Webb

It takes India weeks to complete an election and it never passes without flashes of violence.

But the much younger democracy of Indonesia voted calmly for their president on Wednesday and got the voting over in five hours with a good indication of the result — a second term for the reformist ex-general Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono — out just a couple of hours later.

“Faster, Better,” was the racy campaign slogan of Jusuf Kalla, one of Yudhoyono’s challengers. He trailed in a distant

third, but his rally cry somehow seems fitting for the country’s remarkable journey since the chaotic coda of President Suharto’s authoritarian rule a decade ago.

And yet if you talk to many Indonesians, they’ll tell you that the whole campaign, which kicked off in January and encompassed parliamentary elections before Wednesday’s vote, has been one long bore.

The series of televised debates by the presidential and vice presidential candidates were so polite and deferential, so Javanese really, that it was hard at times to believe that here were three teams actually competing against each other. Perhaps it’s unfair to mention it on his victory day, but Yudhoyono himself has been known to send listener’s off to sleep with his speeches.

Maybe “boring” is good, a sign that democracy isn’t a novelty anymore — just a fact of Indonesian life.

Still, there were moments during the election campaign when things got a little bit edgier in this predominantly Muslim country, where religion is increasingly a sensitive subject.

There were snide remarks about whether the wife of Yudhoyono’s running mate, Boediono, was a Catholic (she is Muslim), and whether the wives of Yudhoyono and Boediono ought to wear a headscarf, like the wives of their opponents.

And while Wednesday’s vote was an illustration of how much Indonesia has changed in the 11 years since Suharto’s ignominious exit, there were many reminders of that less glorious past.

Yudhoyono’s rivals, Megawati Sukarnoputri and Kalla, picked Suharto-era generals with terrible human rights records — Prabowo Subianto and Wiranto — as their running mates.

Prabowo, who was married to one of Suharto’s daughters, was responsible for the kidnapping and torture of some of Megawati’s supporters in 1998. Now, the two are the best of friends and Prabowo, a rousing speaker, most likely has his eye on the 2014 election.

“I think Indonesia needs a decisive military man. SBY? He is so Obama. When he speaks, he sounds exactly like Obama!,” said Lilik S. Wardi, a housewife in Surabaya after she had cast her vote. “So I chose Prabowo. I didn’t want a president who copies Obama’s style.”

By Jacob Comenetz

Less than three months before Germany’s election, Chancellor Angela Merkel has become the unlikely subject of a new comic book.

Journalist Miriam Hollstein teamed up with political cartoonist Heiko Sakurai to tell the story, with pictures and speech bubbles, of  ”How Angie became our chancellor”, as the 64-page book is subtitled.

The authors say it is the first comic book devoted to the German chancellor in a country that lacks a tradition of comics and has a reputation for seriousness.

“Germans are ready for this kind of book,” said artist Sakurai, pointing out that the book is not only about entertainment. “Our comic is serious too.”

It tells the story of Merkel’s rapid rise to the top position in German politics despite what critics say is her lack of charisma. Along the way, she outfoxes numerous male opponents who attempt to stunt her progress.

A key turning point portrayed in the book came in January 2002 when Merkel made a secret deal with her conservative rival Edmund Stoiber, then the premier of the southern state of Bavaria who became the conservative candidate for chancellor that year. She promised to support his candidacy in exchange for his supporting her bid to become the head of the party’s parliamentary group.

“It was a daredevil move,” said Hollstein, adding it allowed her to get the upper hand in her party after Stoiber lost the federal election.

A scene from Merkel’s childhood reveals much about her cautious leadership style. She stands on a high diving board as two boys look on. “She’s been there for 45 minutes,” says one.

“Coward, she’ll never jump,” says the other as they turn to walk away.

At that moment, she jumps. And the caption reads, “Even back then one shouldn’t have underestimated her.” 

Sakurai, who has drawn Merkel hundreds of times for German newspapers, said while many aspects of her appearance had changed over time, he had always drawn her eyes in the same way. “This dull look, with the lids half shut, means we can’t look into her soul,” he said. “What does this woman actually want? Where is she going? We don’t really know.”

In the final scene, as her formal rivals Stoiber and former Social Democrat Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder drink themselves into a stupor while watching the returns come in on election night 2009, Merkel gets the final word.

“Cheers! Here’s to the old bird losing!” says Schroeder. Merkel then appears: “You boys only belong to the past, I, however, have gone down in HISTORY!”

But the book leaves open who will win in September’s election.

Should Germany change its election law just a few months before September’s parliamentary vote? That’s the question that has been weighing on Chancellor Angela Merkel’s right-left coalition.

But fears that Germany might end up “smelling like a banana republic”, as Sueddeutsche Zeitung newspaper columnist Kurt Kister wrote, or be mentioned in the same breath as Iran if it ends up tampering with the law so close to the Sept. 27 ballot has helped kill the intriguing idea for the time being. There is also a tacit angst running through Merkel’s conservative CDU and their Bavarian sister party, the Christian Social Union, that they could end up throwing away a possible victory once again (a 21-point lead melted to 1-point win in 2005) for their preferred centre-right coalition with the Free Democrats by changing the law now.

It’s a quirk of the German mixed member proportional two-vote system that has caused a mess with so-called “Ueberhangmandate” (”overhang seats”). Each voter can cast one ballot for a specific candidate in one of the 299 constituencies and a second ballot for a particular party. The second vote gives the percentage of seats each party wins. But if a party wins more direct seats in the constituency via the first ballot than it should have based on the percentage of second votes, new “Ueberhangmandate” are created. The CDU/CSU and SPD are the primary beneficiaries.

Der Spiegel news magazine cited research from political scientists showing that the CDU and CSU could pick up a record 24 “overhang seats” while the SPD is projected to pick up at most 3 additional seats. That would raise the odds of the CDU/CSU being able to form a centre-right coalition with the pro-business Free Democrats and end their loveless marriage with the SPD in the grand coalition. The CDU/CSU currently enjoys a 11-point lead in opinion polls but their lead is expected to narrow by September — as it did in 2005.

The touchy issue of the “overhang seats” will flair up briefly in parliament on Friday, one of the final sessions before the election, when opposition parties put what is likely to be their doomed motion to change the law up for a vote.

The small parties feel justifiably disadvantaged by the law and the Constitutional Court agreed. Germany’s highest court in 2008 ordered changes to the election law to eliminate that built-in advantage that has often given a few extra seats in parliament at each election to the two larger parties, Merkel’s Christian Democrats and the SPD. “Overhang seats” helped cement Merkel’s position in the 2005 election and before that it helped the SPD Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder’s ruling SPD-Greens coalition get a bit more breathing room in 1998 and 2002 with a slightly more comfortable majority. Before that CDU Chancellor Helmut Kohl was the beneficiary of “overhang seats”.

The only catch was that the Constitutional Court in 2008 gave the government three years, until 2011, to make the changes. The CDU/CSU and the SPD were understandably in no rush to change the law that had helped them in past elections. The SPD, as it slowly dawned on them that they might be the big loser in the overhang seats sweepstakes this time, briefly entertained the notion of backing the measure by the Greens and Left party. But that would have immediately brought down the grand coalition and left the SPD out of power and left Merkel running a minority government in a caretaker role until September, according to
Bild columnist Hugo Mueller-Vogg.

And the SPD bolting to back a measure with the Greens and Left party would have immediately prompted a national debate about whether the SPD would be, despite claims to the contrary, preparing the way for a federal alliance with the Left party after the election.

So should Germany quickly change its election law before September and risk looking like a “banana republic” or carry on with a system that puts the smaller parties at a distinct disadvantage?

PHOTO: German Chancellor Angela Merkel casts her vote at the Federal Assembly in the Reichstag building in Berlin, May 23, 2009 that re-elected Horst Koehler president. REUTERS/Tobias Schwarz

By Barani Krishnan

A decade ago, Malaysia’s former deputy prime minister Anwar Ibrahim was on trial for sodomy and corruption in a trial that exposed the seamy side of Malaysian justice and the anxieties of a young country grappling with a crushing financial crisis and civil unrest.

Anwar is Malaysia’s best known political figure, courted in the U.S. and Europe and probably the only man who can topple the government that has led this Southeast Asian country for the past 51 years.

Photo: Anwar Ibrahim, with a bruised eye, at court on Sept 30, 1998 during his his first trial. REUTERS/David Loh

Now the leader of the opposition, will go on trial next week again charged with sodomising a 23-year old male aide. The trial once again looks likely to provide gory evidence and bringing some unwanted attention from the world’s media on this Southeast Asian country of 27 million people. It could also embarrass the government and draw international criticism.

Anwar vowed in a recent interview to fight what he says are trumped up charges.

The 14 months I spent covering the 1998 trials saw Anwar accused of sodomy with three men and having sex with a woman over a period of years. This case is simpler, there is just one accuser. All homosexual acts are illegal in this mainly Muslim country and sex outside marriage is illegal for Muslims.

The first trial was gruelling. Lines began as early as four in the morning as people tried to get into the court that could seat less than 200. Most of the spectators were ordinary people, but there was a sprinkling of dignitaries and businessmen who had known Anwar when he was in office.

There was a separate media queue and again a fight to get in line as dozens of reporters from local and international outlets jockeyed for space. Ringing the court were hundreds of riot police, backed by watercannon, waiting for trouble in a country where there were daily protests at the time, often involving tens of thousands of people.

Once inside the courtroom, things were equally unpredictable. Judge Augustine Paul, plucked from obscurity to oversee Malaysia’s most important criminal trial, won national fame for his oft-repeated response of “not relevant” to evidence introduced by the defence team.

The evidence itself was often contradictory and often bizarre. Ummi Hafilda Ali, a star witness for the prosecution called Anwar a “dog” and prayed that he would contract AIDS. At one stage the prosecution paraded a mattress in and out of the courtroom, saying that semen stains showed Anwar had had sex with a man on it.

One day outside the court, a witch doctor cast a spell, for no apparent reason.

Anwar showed up sporting a black eye that he said had been inflicted on him in prison by the country’s police chief. This time round he says that he was forced to strip and his sexual organs measured in a hospital.

The evidence to be presented by the prosecution this time looks likely to be just as sensational. The malaysianmirror web portal, backed by one of the government parties, said there will be 30 witnesses, a carpet and a video recording, as well as a DNA evidence brought into court.

Anwar’s team, citing two medical reports, says there is no evidence that Saiful Bukhari Azlan was sodomised. Saiful meanwhile has sworn on the Koran that he was and wasn’t best pleased when the charge against Anwar was changed to consensual sex.

One key actor in the whole drama is missing this time round. Former prime minister Mahathir Mohamad, who critics say used the 1998 trial to drive Anwar from office and to humiliate him, is no longer in power. That removes some of the sting.

Even so, incumbent premier Najib Razak attracts plenty of ire from the opposition. He has been forced to deny allegations from the opposition and opposition-supporting websites that he was involved in the lurid murder of a Mongolian model.

The country remains tense in the wake of the 2008 general election in which the government lost its customary two-thirds majority.

Can Anwar survive another trial? Without him, can the opposition prosper and have a real chance of winning at the ballot box  in elections due to be held by 2013. Can Najib survive as prime minister if Anwar remains free and can he implement economic reforms?

That political stability is vital for investment and development goes without saying, but it seems as though too much instability can be bad for criminal enterprises too.

The cocaine cartels that used West Africa, and Guinea-Bissau in particular, as a conduit to Europe were long accused of worsening the chaos in one of the region’s poorest and most troubled states by buying off some factions of the security forces and political leaders.

But if so, things may have gone too far.

In less than a year, Guinea-Bissau has lost President Joao Bernardo “Nino” Vieira (dead), the head of the army (dead), the head of the navy (fled), a former defence minister (dead) and a candidate to replace the slain president in the June 28 election (dead). And those are just some of the figures at the top.

Whichever of Guinea-Bissau’s leaders might have been involved in the drugs trade and which were trying to fight it, the removal of such a swathe of the leadership appears for now at least to have knocked the traffickers off balance too.

Drug smuggling through West Africa has plummeted, according to the U.N., despite the fact that its geography also makes it an ideal bridge between Latin America and Europe.

"The fact that big traffickers do not any longer have certain partners in power clearly have disrupted the routes," said Antonio Mazzitelli, regional head of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime. "A trafficker would never bring 2 tonnes of drugs to a country where he is not sure he can operate,” he told Reuters.

Political changes in Guinea, where a junta seized power after the death of President Lansana Conte, and Ghana, where the opposition won a democratic election, also appear to have limited their use as smuggling conduits for now.

An election in Guinea-Bissau now offers a chance for a new start. With greater international support its chance of becoming a failed state could have improved.

A question for the West African countries – and for the drug traffickers – may be whether administrations that become more entrenched over time will more easily fall prey to the lure of the drug money despite the dangers.

A wealthy businessman and critic of President Cristina Fernandez is spending millions of dollars in his own money to win the biggest race in Argentina’s upcoming mid-term elections.

Polls show Francisco de Narvaez, who leads a congressional ticket for a dissident faction of the ruling Peronist party, in a close race against Fernandez’s husband, former President Nestor Kirchner, who is widely seen as the government’s top political and economic strategist.

Both are bidding for a congressional seat from Buenos Aires province, Argentina’s largest and most populous, in a vote that will define to what extent the Kirchners keep their grip on the governing party through 2011 presidential elections.

Fernandez is expected to lose her congressional majority in the June 28th balloting.

Little-known politically only months ago, de Narvaez has raised his profile by spending heavily on television advertising and using his wealth to lead one of the most technologically modern campaigns in Argentine history.

De Narvaez, who was born in Colombia and is known for a tattoo spread across his neck, has said he plans to spend up to the $4 million limit allowed under Argentine campaign finance laws — virtually all of it out of his own pocket.

He has spent an additional undisclosed amount on a mass marketing campaign before the campaign formally got underway.

A member of an Argentine family that sold a popular supermarket chain it once owned for $600 million in the late 1990s, de Narvaez has used the Internet and employed his own video production crew to bolster his campaign.

It has also helped him that the Kirchners are struggling with slumping popularity ratings.

A center-right candidate, de Narvaez has campaigned on fighting crime and criticizing the governing style of the Kirchners as confrontational and authoritarian.

Kirchner has lashed out at de Narvaez’s campaign, saying he is looking to buy his way into a more prominent role in politics.

But his campaign is shaking up the Buenos Aires province race, and at least one poll last week showed him holding a slight lead over Kirchner.

Photo credit: REUTERS/Marcos Brindicci -  Francisco de Narvaez gestures during an interview at his campaign headquarters in Buenos Aires, May 4, 2009

As people across the European Union vote in a European
Parliament election, is it perhaps time to consider making voting in each country compulsory by law?

The build-up to the election has been dominated by talk of voter apathy and how low the turnout will be at the polls. This has drowned out discussion of policies and how to bring about changes in government.

As an Irishman living in Belgium,  I must vote in the elections or face a hefty
fine. My first response to this five years ago was: How dare they
tell me what to do ? But on further reflection, it may make sense.

It is annoying to listen to people who haven’t voted for
years trying to put the world to rights by complaining about
their government or engaging in a bit of “Euro bashing”.
The only way they can make a difference is to vote.

Voting is compulsory on the election in Belgium, Cyprus, Greece
and Luxembourg.

Pollsters say a low turnout favours the extreme left and
far-right parties because they can mobilise their voters while 
mainstream voters are more likely to stay at home. 

European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso also made
the point that there is another issue at stake — that most
countries in Europe have experienced bloodshed without which
people may never have had the right to vote in some countries. He
appealed to voters not to scorn this chance to vote.