Angela Merkel celebrates after German election
BBC News online -- 22 September 2013
Angela Merkel told her supporters: "We can all be delighted"
Angela
Merkel has urged her party to celebrate "a super result" after exit
polls suggested she was set to win a third term as German chancellor.
Otherwise Mrs Merkel might have to seek a grand coalition with the Social Democrats - estimated to have won 26%.
Her preferred liberal partners appear not to have made it into parliament.
Analysis
At CDU headquarters, the exit polls were read as "victory". The low support for the CDU's current partners, the Free Democrats - which, on early indications, may not get any MPs - means Chancellor Merkel will have to look for a new partner.
The SPD and the Greens on their own do not have the support to form a government on their own.
Accordingly, all the indications are that a negotiation between the CDU and the SPD will start in order to form a "grand coalition".
Such a government happened under Chanceller Merkel in 2005. Her finance minister then was Peer Steinbrueck. He has said he wouldn't serve this time, though he would be involved in negotiations.
Such a government would be a slight move to the left. The SPD, for example, has been keener on help for Greece, talking of a Marshall Plan II. That would be difficult for Chancellor Merkel but it does indicate that the pressures on her would change from in the past.
Exit polls for ARD public
television put the liberal Free Democrats (FDP) on 4.7%, which if
confirmed would be a disaster for the junior coalition partner, leaving
it with no national representation in parliament.
The FDP was beaten by the Green Party (8%) and the former communist Left Party (8.5%), and even, according to exit polls, the new Alternative fuer Deutschland, which advocates withdrawal from the euro currency and took 4.9%, just short of the parliamentary threshold.
There was some speculation on German television that Mrs Merkel's Christian Democrats (CDU) and their Bavarian sister CSU might even win enough seats for an absolute majority - the first in half a century - if both the FDP and AfD fail to make it into parliament.
The ARD channel's projection had her group winning 297 seats against 301 for the other three parties, while ZDF had her dead even with the other three.
Mrs Merkel addressed jubilant supporters at CDU headquarters. After waiting for chants of "Angie, Angie" to die down, she told them: "This is a super result."
"We can celebrate tonight because we have done something fantastic."
But, in a reference to coalition building, she said it was "too early to say exactly what we'll do".
Peer Steinbrueck: "We did not get the result we wanted"
Mrs Merkel has made clear she would be prepared to work with the Social Democrats (SPD) in a grand coalition, as she did in 2005-09.
The SPD has been more reluctant to consider linking up with the CDU/CSU again. The party leader, Peer Steinbrueck, was finance minister in the previous grand coalition, but has said he would not serve in such a government again.
After the exit polls were released, but before official results were confirmed, Mr Steinbrueck conceded that it would be up to Mrs Merkel to decide how to proceed saying: "The ball is in Mrs Merkel's court. She has to get herself a majority."
FDP chairman Philipp Roesler was looking at a disastrous resultThe SPD would have preferred to enter a coalition with the Green Party, but does not appear to have the votes to do so, and has ruled out a three-way alliance including the Left Party (Die Linke).
Analysts think the SPD will probably agree to a coalition with the CDU/CSU.
Turnout, projected at about 72%, was higher than at the last federal election - which had the worst on record.
Labels: Germany, Political Realities
posted by Pieface @ Sunday, September 22, 2013
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