GERMANY: Oliver Berndt has much in common with Christian Democrat (CDU) leader Angela Merkel, but he'd never vote for her.
Like Dr Merkel, he was born in Hamburg, though seven years later. He was also a physics researcher at the Max Born Institute in Berlin - a few years after Dr Merkel left to enter politics.
She is hoping for a new job on Sunday as Germany's first woman chancellor, but Mr Berndt is one of Germany's five million unemployed. Last week he voted by post, and gave his vote to the Social Democrats (SPD) of Chancellor Gerhard Schröder.
Mr Berndt is scanning job postings in the state employment office - the Arbeitsamt - in the Berlin neighbourhood of Neukölln, where the unemployment rate is twice the national average of nearly 11 per cent.
"Politics can only do so much to influence the world economic situation and it's ridiculous for the CDU to urge voters to punish Schröder for the unemployment," says Mr Berndt. Unemployed since February, he is contemplating moving west to a new job in a town near Cologne and remains optimistic about the future.
"The economic reforms were right and necessary and are only beginning to work now," he says, leaving the Arbeitsamt.
Those reforms were announced two years ago by Mr Schröder in the hotel conference centre across the road. He held firm against huge country-wide protests in the summer of 2004 and the reforms took effect in January, cutting a single person's dole payment to €345 a month, excluding full rent allowance and other benefits. The duration of dole payments was shortened to 12 months and there is now increased pressure on jobless to accept work.
The SPD mentions no new major reforms in its manifesto, but the CDU has plans to loosen hire-fire laws, introduce state-subsidised low-wage jobs and allow workers to accept company wage agreements that depart from industry-wide tariffs.
"A lot of unemployed I talk to are determined to vote because they can see that a bit of all our future is being decided, and most don't want Merkel," said Marion Drögsler, Berlin head of the Association of the Unemployed, a lobby group for Germany's jobless.
Most of the job-seekers who come for advice say they will be hit hard by the CDU's proposed VAT hike to finance a cut in non-wage costs, she says.
They also reject the CDU's argument that loosening labour laws and cutting high redundancy payments will encourage companies to take on more staff.
"Of course these people want to know how easy it will be for them to be fired again," says Ms Drögsler.
In unemployment blackspots like Berlin and the eastern federal states, the greatest threat to the SPD's re-election is the Left Party incorporating the traditionally strong reformed communists.
A new poll yesterday showed that 30 per cent of the electorate is still undecided how to vote; support for a CDU-led coalition stands equal with that for the SPD, Greens and Left Party. On Sunday, Germany's five million unemployed could swing the election either way.