Few options for Merkel
Chancellor Angela Merkel got down to work yesterday in the fractured political landscape left by Germany's "earthquake" election, seeking a ruling majority to help neutralise a newly empowered hard right.
Merkel huddled with her conservative deputies in the Bundestag lower house, where their CDU/CSU group saw its seats axed to 246 from 309 following its worst poll showing in seven decades.
Also at the glass-domed Reichstag parliament building for the first time were the 93 deputies of the Alternative for Germany, a party branded far-right by many German officials and media outlets.
In Sunday's election, the AfD poached support from both mainstream camps, the conservatives and the Social Democrats (SPD), junior partners in the "grand coalition" that has led Germany for eight of Merkel's 12 years in power.
According to opinion polls, most of those voters pointed to anger over Merkel's border policy, which allowed more than one million asylum seekers into the country since 2015.
After the SPD scored a humiliating 20.5 percent, a post-war record, it ruled out further cooperation with Merkel, meaning her search for a ruling alliance became infinitely more complicated.
Commentators yesterday said that Merkel's only other option -- trying a link-up with the pro-business Free Democrats (FDP) and the ecologist Greens -- would be fraught with risk.
Merkel has said she hoped to have a new government in place by Christmas but right-leaning daily Die Welt warned a stalemate could spark new elections.
Few expect coalition talks to start in earnest until after a snap poll on October 15 in Lower Saxony state, home to Volkswagen.
Comments