The country is in trouble. Unemployment is high, the economy seems to be locked in a long, slow decline, and there is widespread unrest, especially in the depressed areas. Things have to change, a fact that most citizens acknowledge, but who's going to make those changes happen? Reckoning on the popularity of the man in charge and the mixed public attitude towards the female leader of the opposition, the governing party has decided that its only real chance is to call elections earlier than expected. With elections fast approaching, however, it looks like it may have made a big mistake.

Sound familiar? It should. It's a concise description of the choice facing Germany this Sunday as the country votes between an unpopular government run by Social Democratic Chancellor Gerhard Schröder and the only slightly more palatable prospect of a government run by his Christian Democrat (CDU) challenger Angela Merkel.

But the above scenario should sound doubly familiar. After all, just over a quarter century ago, Great Britain -- facing problems perhaps even more intractable than those now facing Germany -- opted for "tough love" and elected Conservative leader Margaret Thatcher for what turned out to be an 11 year stint as the country's first female prime minister. What followed is well known. Margaret Thatcher soon became the "Iron Lady," the word "Thatcherite" entered the language as a synonym for tough, unfeeling conservatism and her legacy has become at least as contentious as that of Ronald Reagan in the United States.

Can Germany follow Britain's lead?

The question facing Germans in the autumn of 2005 is whether they're ready for a repeat of the English '80s. There is also the question, of course, as to whether Merkel is the one to deliver. Last year, she was a tough-talking reformer warning Germans that the worst was yet to come. Recently, she has been trying to soften up her image. Nevertheless, polls indicate that Merkel, backed by the reform-minded CDU, may soon be walking the halls of Berlin's Chancellery. An historical glance across the channel to the 10 Downing Street of 1979 may help indicate what's in store for Germany over a quarter century later.

While Thatcher, even in 1979, had the reputation of being a tough talker, there was little at first to indicate the subsequent emergence of the "Iron Lady." In fact, after she was elected leader of the Conservatives in 1975, she built a broad coalition within the party, proving her ability to unite it. She eked out the election with a majority of 43 percent over the popular, avuncular Labour leader James Callaghan following a disastrous winter of strikes and poor economic news.

Thatcher entered 10 Downing Street with a disarmingly gentle message from Saint Francis of Assisi: Where there is discord, may we bring harmony. Where there is error, may we bring truth. Where there is doubt, may we bring faith. And where there is despair, may we bring hope." Whatever her long-term aims, it took Thatcher some years of relatively cautious rule -- and a successful war in the Falkland Islands -- before the true "Iron Lady" began to emerge. And once she did, there was precious little harmony and an awful lot of discord. As for error versus truth, the jury is still out.

Thatcher arrived in the prime minister's office surrounded by powerful men, most of them not her natural supporters. Indeed, only a handful of ministers in her 1979 cabinet could be classified as hard right-wingers -- or "Thatcherites" as they later came to be called. The rest were center-right former supporters of Europhile Tory leader Edward Heath, the man who took Britain into the European Community in 1974, with a few traditionally aristocratic landowners thrown in for the sake of historical authenticity. There was a feeling in the early years of Thatcher's premiership that not just the opposition but a substantial number of her colleagues were waiting for her to self-destruct. Hence her relative caution.

Nevertheless, there's little doubt that Thatcher had always planned radical changes. A top priority was the reduction of deficits through draconian monetary measures. Then, the liberalization of the capital markets and reduced regulation. Finally came the drastic lowering of income and business taxes (compensated for partly by sales tax hikes).

All these changes came quite early on. Inflation fell rapidly, but with interest rates high, unemployment jumped. British manufacturing industry had been struggling since the 1950s to compete -- with an eye on Germany and Japan in particular. Now it suffered further from the high pound and expensive borrowing. At the same time, the Conservative government attacked British protectionism and industrial subsidies which had compensated for low productivity and the restrictive power of the country's trade unions. Whole areas of Britain -- especially the industrial north -- were devastated as factories closed and workers were shed. By 1982, more than 3 million were unemployed making up 11 percent of the workforce.

Good in exports, bad at home

In other words, in addition to the superficial similarities between early '80s Britain and Germany of 2005, there are a good many structural parallels. The differences, however, are perhaps just as telling. By the time Thatcher came to power, Britain's clear export successes were confined to Scotch whisky and Harrods Teddy Bears. Not so with early 21st-century Germany. German labor may be expensive, but its workers' skill and productivity -- even in a hugely competitive global market place -- still enjoy considerable success. The world is still prepared to pay for German quality.

The challenges facing Germany are also different. The country's next chancellor faces high pensions, relatively generous welfare and unemployment provisions, and the lack of funds to pay them due to high unemployment and a low birth rate. "Reform" in 2005 Germany is about a system that spent too long subsidizing the coal and steel industries. And it's about a generous but poorly focused development program for former East Germany -- a program that has left vast swathes of the former socialist region without employment and with few prospects of any.

"Iron Maggie," a trained scientist, saw the "managed decline" of Britain as reversible. She told the workers who lost their jobs in the traditional industries that new service industries would be their salvation. And her ministers, whom she had managed within a few years of her accession to purge and replace with loyal "Thatcherites", told those who had no jobs in the north of England to "get on their bikes" and look for work elsewhere in the country.

"Iron Angie" -- also a trained scientist -- does not have the same latitude. She cannot tell eastern Germans to simply leave for the West (although almost 3 million have, of course, already done so). Neither can she simply dismantle the German welfare state -- a key part of the West German post-war bargain between government and governed and seen as a barrier against the return of chaos and fascism.

In short, she may have the same determination as Thatcher, but she has a much harder job. By the late 1970s the British were really desperate. They were prepared, in the final analysis, to accept any medicine if it would revive the "English patient". Do Germans feel the same way now? Probably not. There is widespread concern about unemployment, but one doesn't get the feeling that chaos is around the corner. During the British "Winter of Discontent" of 1978-79 bodies were left unburied, garbage was not collected, and transport did not run. Civilization appeared to be breaking down. The British electorate at that time was seriously prepared to take a gamble on Thatcher and her exciting, somewhat terrifying vision for Britain.

Thatcher saved by the Falkland war

In other words, one wonders if Germans are desperate enough for a Teutonic repeat of the "Iron Lady." Most Germans are still quite well off, and the clear, continued success of certain areas of the German economy also takes the edge off the sense of despair. Merkel will still likely win on Sunday. But there is a sense that if "Iron Angie's" solutions are too radical and the pain too sharp, her support will rapidly melt away.

And that, too, would be a parallel to Britain in the early 1980s. By 1981, opinion polls labelled Thatcher as the most unpopular British prime minister in history and commentators had begun to write her off as a failed extremist. But 1982 brought the first baby steps toward economic improvement -- and the war against Argentina to recover the Falklands. It was a huge gamble, but the boost to national pride helped ensure a huge majority for Thatcher in the 1983 election. The rest -- privatization, Britain's own "economic miracle," the taming of the trade unions -- followed.

Which means that Germany's "Iron Lady" -- with no wars on the horizon -- will have to be careful as she gradually withdraws her fist from the velvet glove she has donned for the current campaign. Only then will she be able to force Germans to swallow her bitter medicine for continued German prosperity and success in the 21st century.

Thatcher saw earlier than most western leaders that the survival of individual capitalist societies in a global economic environment entails something radically new: a business-driven "permanent revolution." From most of her public statements, Merkel appears to share that view. But she faces an uphill battle. Most Germans don't like revolutions.