Merkel in final push to form coalition to avert crisis

CHANCELLOR Angela Merkel was due to make a last push yesterday to forge a government, in a twin battle to save her political future and avert fresh elections that could destabilise Germany and Europe.

Elections in September had left the veteran leader without a majority and weakened as some of her party’s voters turned to the far-right AfD because of anger over her liberal refugee policy.

The disputed decision to let in more than a million asylum seekers since 2015 is also prov- ing to be a stumbling block as she seeks an alliance with an unlikely group of parties spanning the left and right of the political spectrum.

Merkel’s conservative CDU party and Bavarian allies CSU, the pro-business FDP and the Greens had given themselves until yesterday to clinch a deal.

Failing which, Germany would have to hold new polls in 2018 as the centre-left Social Democratic Party has ruled out returning to a coalition with Merkel after suffering a humiliating loss at September’s polls.

Merkel, who has years of gruelling EU negotiations under her belt, now needs to see through what is likely the most important weekend of her political life.

“If she fails, the turbulence arising from a failure would quickly engulf her personally.

“This weekend is about the coalition and the chancellor,” said the best-selling Bild daily.

Frank Decker, of the University of Bonn, also had no doubt about what is at stake.

“It is absolutely in her interest for this government to come into being, because failure would spell her end,” he told rolling news channel Phoenix.

A poll by Welt online, also found that 61.4 percent of those surveyed said a collapse of talks would mean an end to Merkel as chancellor.

Merkel, in power for 12 years, had initially set a Thursday deadline to decide if the motley crew of parties had found enough common ground to begin formal coalition negotiations. But the talks went into overtime with no breakthrough.

After a day of negotiations on Saturday, co-chief of the Greens Simone Peter said there was movement but “often in different directions”.

The hot-button issue of immigration also remains unresolved, with the CSU and the Greens digging in their heels over their opposing demands.

KAY NIETFELD/DPA/AFP German Chancellor Angela Merkel arrives at the CDU’s headquarters for talks with members of potential coalition parties to form a new government on November 17, in Berlin.

KCNA VIA KNS/AFP This picture taken on November 17 shows a meeting between Song Tao (third left), head of the International Liaison Department of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, and Choe Ryong-hae (second right), member of the Presidium of the...