Merkel open to another election
GERMANY: Chancellor Angela Merkel says she is ready to fight a rerun of the German election, after most parties rejected President Frank-Walter Steinmeier’s appeal to get back around the negotiating table after coalition talks collapsed.
Merkel said yesterday she had no intention of standing down after the pro-business Free Democratic Party (FDP) caused the failure of fourparty talks on forming a new government. She said she preferred an election to a minority government.
Yesterday most of the blame for the breakdown of the talks was being heaped on Christian Lindner, the brash leader of the FDP, who quit theatrically on Monday, declaring that he had lost trust in the process.
Leading figures from the other parties involved - Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union (CDU), its Bavarian conservative allies, and the Greens - accused him of plotting his withdrawal at a time when a deal was near.
Some in the CDU believe his antics were aimed at bringing Merkel down so that the FDP could pick up more votes against a different candidate.
CDU sources believe that this could backfire and focus voters’ minds on supporting the chancellor of 12 years in an election rather than the FDP newcomer, who has been likened by some to a German Emmanuel Macron.
They admitted that it could take until March to form a government, given that Steinmeier was clearly opposed to a new vote and wanted talks to continue.
‘‘I do not have a minority government in my plans,’’ Merkel said. ‘‘I do not want to say never today, but I am very sceptical, and I think that new elections would then be the better way.’’
She made it clear that her preelection pledge to serve another full term still stood.
Merkel, who remains caretaker chancellor, said her conservatives had ‘‘left nothing untried to find a solution’’. She said she would ‘‘do everything to ensure that this country is well led through these difficult weeks’’.
The Social Democrats (SPD), who came second in the election but suffered a historically low result, said they would not budge from their refusal to join the next government.
The political manoeuvring seemed to infuriate Steinmeier, a former SPD candidate for chancellor who lost to Merkel in 2009.
‘‘We now face a situation that we have not had in the history of the Federal Republic of Germany, so in nearly 70 years,’’ he said after meeting Merkel.
‘‘This is the moment at which all parties should pause and reconsider their position. I expect from everyone readiness to talk, in order to make the formation of a government possible in the foreseeable future.’’
In remarks seemingly targeted at the FDP and SPD, he added: ‘‘Inside our country, but also outside, in particular in our European neighbourhood, there would be concern and a lack of understanding if politicians in the biggest and economically strongest country [in Europe] did not live up to their responsibilities.’’
The anti-immigrant Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, which came third in September, welcomed the debacle. ‘‘Merkel has failed,’’ Alexander Gauland, its coparliamentary leader, said. ‘‘ We think it is time for her to go.’’
A new election was unlikely before late March, MPs warned, given the time-consuming checks and balances built into Germany’s postwar constitution to prevent one party seizing power.
The traditional parties turned on Lindner.
Julia Klockner, a senior CDU figure, derided his ‘‘well-prepared spontaneity’’, and Jurgen Trittin, a senior Green MP, said the FDP had hardened its approach to immigration as the talks went on.
‘‘As we put a last compromise on the table, the FDP had their prepared statement in their pocket,’’ he said, adding that it was part of a plan to bring down Merkel. – The Times