Merkel and a nail-biting election
It was a Berlin summer party. A Monday evening, with the city sweating. There was a guest list of 4,000. The smoke from the hog roasts and the Spanferkel drifted between the tents serving champagne and beer. A high school band from Lower Saxony played Land of Hope and Glory. Among those settling onto the benches in front of the small stage were power players. Understated men like Ferdinand Piech, the boss of Porsche, and Martin Winterkorn, the head of Volkswagen.
They had gathered here for a bland politician who would be president, if the vote goes his way on Wednesday. Christian Wulff is a political insider, a centre-right politician from Lower Saxony. A presidential election in Germany rarely attracts attention. It is largely a ceremonial post. But a late arrival at the party gave the clue to why this vote matters.
Angela Merkel, off a plane from the G20 in Canada, edged through the crowd and settled at a table. She was an unexpected guest, but Mr Wulff is her candidate. The election has turned into a vote of confidence in her leadership. If Mr Wulff loses, her government could be in trouble.
Mrs Merkel gives little away as a politician. She looked drawn, but relaxed, with a glass of white wine. There is no trace of anxiety about her.
Her difficulty is that Mr Wulff's opponent is a man with a great life story. Joachim Gauck struggled against the Communist regime in East Germany, and suffered for taking a stand. He's a pastor who was in charge of the archives left behind by the secret police, the Stasi. He has moral authority in spades. Ironically he and Mrs Merkel are friends. But this is politics, and she had to back someone from within her own party.
If it was a popular vote Mr Gauck would get it. It is not. The vote is taken by a Federal Assembly made up of MPs and delegates from the 16 federal states. It's an electorate of just over 1200. If everyone were to vote on party lines Mr Wulff would win by around 20 votes.
Now, in less agitated times, Mrs Merkel could shrug off a defeat. The post of president has moral authority rather than political power, and the chancellor could happily co-exist with Mr Gauck.
But Mrs Merkel has been battered by events and mistakes. Her first problem is that her coalition with the Free Democrats is strained. They bicker and disagree, and Germans don't like that.
Secondly, Germans are still angry that, at the last moment, they had to bail out the Greeks. Under the Maastricht Treaty there were not supposed to be bail-outs within the eurozone. Some say that Mrs Merkel dithered and the cost of saving the euro grew as a result.
Thirdly, she has introduced her own austerity package. She didn't need to, but she wanted to set an example to the rest of Europe that financial houses must be put in order. Many felt the package hurt the vulnerable the most.
Then there are fears about the euro, which is losing value, and that really frightens people.
What has drained away is Angela Merkel's authority, that sureness of grasp that marked her earlier period in power.
The result of the vote could be close on Wednesday. The winner, in the first round, needs an overall majority plus one. When I spoke to Peter Altmaier, the chief whip of the CDU - the man who must deliver the votes for Mr Wulff - he conceded it could go to three rounds. He expects Mr Wulff to win, as does most of the political class here.
If the unexpected happens, Angela Merkel's authority will be undermined. It would also mean that some Free Democrats had voted for Mr Gauck. She would not resign but, as her biographer Gerd Langruth said, "it would be the beginning of the end for this government".
She is a shrewd, patient politician who plots her moves. She would not be hustled out of power. But there would be uncertainty as she restructures her coalition. And there would be uncertainty in Germany at a time when, more than ever, it holds the key to resolving the crisis in Europe. A crisis that is not yet over.
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