Weakened Merkel wins deal to govern

Gives up control of key portfolios to land coalition

BERLIN• The way was finally cleared for Angela Merkel to form a new government in Germany Sunday as the centre-left Social Democratic Party (SPD) voted in favour of a coalition deal.

A mail vote of the SPD’s 463,000 members voted to keep Merkel in power by a healthy margin, with 66 per cent in favour and 34 per cent against. The decision brings an end to months of political crisis. The vote was the last hurdle standing in Merkel’s way, and she will now be able to defy her critics and begin a fourth term as chancellor.

“I congratulate the SPD on this clear result and look forward to further co-operation for the good of our country,” she said in a statement.

Merkel will start what is almost certainly her final term as chancellor in a weakened position. She suffered heavy losses in September’s election and it took her five months to put together a new coalition — the longest it has taken in postwar German history.

But last week she successfully fought off an incipient rebellion in her own Christian Democrat party ( CDU) by bringing a younger generation into cabinet and paving the way for her eventual succession. And with Sunday’s vote she has seen off a considerably bigger grassroots rebellion within the SPD and can now count on the party’s support in parliament.

However, she had to surrender control of key government departments, including the powerful finance ministry, to get a deal.

The new “grand coalition” means the nationalist Alternative for Germany party ( AfD) is now the main opposition in parliament, which will give its MPs a platform Merkel and her allies would have preferred to deny them.

With the SPD in control of the finance, foreign and employment ministries, it is likely to be markedly different from Merkel’s previous administrations. “We now have clarity,” Olaf Scholz, the acting SPD leader, said. “The SPD will enter the government.”

But Merkel’s main coalition partner remains in disarray. The decision whether to join a new coalition has riven the SPD down the middle and claimed the scalp of Martin Schulz, its former leader, who negotiated the coalition deal only to be forced out by a deeply unhappy party base.

Schulz is expected to become vice-chancellor and finance minister but has said he will not stand for the fulltime SPD leadership.

Andrea Nahles, a former employment minister, is now favourite to take over the party after she successfully led the Yes campaign in the coalition vote.

Merkel is not set to be formally voted in as chancellor until Mar. 14, but she is expected to begin the work of forming a new government immediately.