GERMANY: Germany's Green Party has begun a final push to capture third place in Sunday's general election and a second term in office.
With the two largest parties neck-and-neck in the polls, the performance of the Greens and the liberal Free Democrats (FDP) will be a key factor in determining the hue of Germany's next government.
"The FDP will introduce neo-liberalism to Germany, a political philosophy that has come to a crashing halt in the US," said Mr Joschka Fischer, the German foreign minister.
Mr Fischer ruled out a three-way coalition with the FDP and the Social Democrats as a way of holding on to power. He also called on voters to shun the reformed communist Party of Democratic Socialism (PDS).
The PDS is not expected to achieve the 5 per cent threshold which is necessary for representation in parliament. However, a return of the PDS to parliament would be a blow to the hopes the current government has of being able to remain in power after the election.
"A vote for the PDS is a vote for a grand coalition of SPD and CDU," Mr Fischer stated in the left-wing Tageszeitung newspaper yesterday.
The Greens had hoped that last month's flood catastrophe in eastern Germany would win over voters to its environment platform. But the party has had to shape its campaign around the personality of Mr Fischer, consistently Germany's most popular politician.
The Greens could receive an unexpected boost in coming days from the FDP, which last night found itself caught up in a leadership crisis.
The party leader, Mr Guido Westerwelle, plans to cancel all planned joint appearances with his deputy, Mr Jürgen Möllemann, who used a campaign leaflet to attack Israel and a senior representative of Germany's Jewish community.
"It makes no sense and it is not necessary to discuss this matter. A personal dispute does not belong in an election campaign," Mr Westerwelle said yesterday.
Mr Fischer called Mr Möllemann's actions "disgusting".
He added: "I call on the FDP and its leaders to draw a clear dividing line between themselves and Möllemann. As long as he is in the party, the FDP is not electable."
The FDP's difficulties will increase the nervousness in the CDU camp. Only a strong showing from the FDP, their sole likely coalition partner, will help make up the 2 per cent lead gained by the SPD in recent days.
The German government has banned 16 Islamic organisations linked to a jailed Turkish militant who wants to overthrow Turkey's secular regime and replace it with a radical Islamic state.
At the same time, the authorities raided over 100 mosques and apartments in five federal states yesterday, using new powers granted by anti-terrorism legislation which was passed in the aftermath of the September 11th attacks on the World Trade Centre.
Mr Otto Schily, the interior minister, said that the groups endangered Germany's internal security and foreign policy interests, although they had no connection to the al-Qaeda network.
"We believe such organisations contribute to a climate that certainly doesn't discourage terror attacks," Mr Schily said.