German Counsellor, Angela Merkel wins historic four term

German Chancellor and leader of the Christian Democratic Union CDU Angela Merkel votes in the general election (Bundestagswahl) in Berlin, Germany, September 24, 2017.

 

(Reuters) – Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservatives beat their rivals on Sunday to win her a fourth term in an election that will also bring a far-right party into Germany’s parliament for the first time in more than half a century, exit polls showed. She must now form a coalition government – an arduous process that could take months as all potential partners are unsure whether they really want to share power with her, according to Reuters.

 

 

Merkel’s conservative bloc won 32.5 percent of the vote, making them the largest parliamentary group, an exit poll for broadcaster ARD indicated. However, that was down from 41.5 percent in the last election, in 2013. Support for their closest rivals, the centre-left Social Democrats (SPD) which are currently junior partners in a so-called “grand coalition” with Merkel, slumped to 20.0 percent – a new post-war low. The SPD ruled out a re-run of that tie-up. The far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) stunned the establishment by finishing third and entering parliament for the first time with 13.5 percent of the vote.

 

Merkel, Europe’s longest-serving leader, joins the late Helmut Kohl, her mentor who reunified Germany, and Konrad Adenauer, who led Germany’s rebirth after World War Two, as the only post-war chancellors to win four national elections. Meanwhile, SPD deputy leader Manuela Schwesig said her party would now go into opposition, which rules outman alliance with the CDU. Meanwhile, there’s speculation that Merkel’s party may form a three-way coalition with the liberal Free Democrats (FDP) and the ecologist Greens; the so-called “Jamaica” option because the three parties’ colours are those of the black-gold-green Jamaica national flag. Neither FDP nor the Greens have ruled themselves out and analysts say, they may be cajoled into a coalition by the prospects of power.

 

 

Political watchers think the next four years are bound to witness some fragmentation in German parliament following the return of the FDP – unrepresented at the national level for the last four years – and the arrival of the AfD.

 

For More on this report, visit the Reuters website.

 

 

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