Germany is set to go to the polls on Sunday, but as of Friday, the only certainty is that it will be one of the tighest races in German election history.

Virtually all polls show the Social Democrats in a slight lead over the conservative opposition, but anything could happen in the next two days.

With the Greens and the liberal Free Democrats running head-to-head in polls, there was no clear sign Friday whether Schröder could count on continuing with the current SPD-Greens government coalition after the election. At this point, there are a number of coalition options available to whichever party gains the most votes on Sunday.

But the candidates had trouble even reaching voters with their messages on Friday due to the eclipsing effects of two emerging 11th-hour political scandals.

Newspapers were awash in ink and radio and television waves filled to capacity with the uproar over statements allegedly made by two leading German politicians -- both packed with powderkeg allusions to the country's history.

Comments allegedly made by Schröder's Justice Minister, Herta Däubler-Gmelin, comparing the methods of United States President George W. Bush with those of Adolf Hitler, drew strong condemnation from both sides of the Atlantic.

Bavarian Premier Stoiber called on Schröder to immediately fire Däubler-Gmelin over the comments the "Schwäbische Tagblatt" newspaper had attributed to her. Stoiber said the statement was "unspeakable" and "unbearable" and required the "immediate reaction of the chancellor." But Schröder continued to stand behind his minister, even as pressure from Washington mounted.

"The minister has made it clear that she didn't make the statements," government spokesman Uwe-Karsten Heye said on Friday.

Meanwhile, the most recent anti-Israel statements made by Jürgen Möllemann, the head of the North Rhine-Westphalia state chapter of the liberal Free Democrats, threatened the party's standing in Sunday's vote.

FDP party leaders were so incensed by Möllemann's attacks on Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Central Council of Jews in Germany Vice President Michel Friedmann that they disinvited him from the final FDP campaign event in Stuttgart.

With campaigns closing and the next expected poll being that of the voters, it is too soon to tell whether the latest political eruption will have any bearing on the outcome of the election.

A campaign dominated by economic themes

Throughout his campaign, Edmund Stoiber sought to hammer Schröder for the country's high unemployment rate, stagnant economy and record number of bankruptcies. He also claimed throughout that recent immigration legislation designed and approved by the government would lead to a flood of newcomers rather than control the number of workers entering the country. For months, his positions and criticism seemed to resonate with German voters.

Schröder responded to the economic issue with a plan drafted by an independent commission led by Volkswagen executive Peter Hartz. The Hartz Commission plan sought to reduce unemployment by reforming Germany's network of employment offices and creating incentives for medium-size businesses to hire more workers. Schröder also argued, somewhat effectively, that Germany's economic malaise was the result of the global economic crisis and had not been homegrown.

Schröder's campaign has also been buoyed by his strong response to July's record flooding in southern and eastern Germany and his strong stance against American military intervention in Iraq. A recent poll showed 65 percent of Germans are opposed to a war against Iraq.

According to a poll taken by the public broadcaster ZDF at the end of August, 58 percent of Germans supported Schröder's decision to delay an approved tax cut in order to finance the rebuilding of German communities ravaged by the flooding. Only 29 percent were against the decision.

The chancellor took his stump speech to the western city of Dortmund on Friday, where he was joined by Nobel Prize-winning German author Günther Grass and Sweden's social democratic prime minister, Göran Persson, who was re-elected last week.

Meanwhile, Stoiber planned to close his campaign with an evening speech in Berlin.