Merkel forges coalition as support ebbs
BERLIN: German Chancellor Angela Merkel, victorious in national elections but wounded by a fall in support for her party and a sharp rise for the far right, yesterday faced the complex task of cobbling together a government for her fourth and final term.
Sunday’s vote left Merkel’s centre-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU) ahead of other parties in the race for the German Parliament – the Bundestag.
But the party’s support fell short of the mark it set four years ago, and her coalition partner, the centre-left Social Democrats (SPD), faced a similarly steep decline.
The SPD announced it would not join Merkel for another term, leaving her with just one functional option for forming a new government: A never-before-tried three-way coalition among her conservatives, the socially liberal and pro-business Free Democrats and the Green Party.
With weeks of tough negotiations expected, Merkel must also reckon with the dramatic gains of the far-right, antiIslam AfD, which came third with 12.6% of the vote and is set to become the first far-right party in the Bundestag in more than half a century.
The party’s vote total was nearly triple its 2013 result and matches the outer limit of its support in pre-election polls.
The groundswell of support upended any notion that Europe’s largest economy and most important geopolitical player is immune to the populist currents roiling other democracies across the West.
It also revealed the depths of lingering resentment towards Merkel’s 2015 decision to welcome more than a million asylum seekers amid the European refugee crisis.
Taken together, the outcome will probably complicate Merkel’s ambitions for her final term, while giving the AfD a platform to influence politics in a country where civility and consensus are prized.
“It’s a huge change,” said Hans Kundnani, a senior fellow at the German Marshall Fund. “It will change the nature of debate in the Bundestag.”
True to its combative reputation, the party wasted no time in vowing to use its voice in the Bundestag, the larger house in parliament, to cause trouble for the government – including by investigating Merkel’s refugee-related decision-making.
“We’re going to hunt Merkel,” Alexander Gauland, the AfD’s co-leader, told supporters. “We’re going to get Germany back.”
But the party will have to overcome fierce internal divisions if it wants to make good on its pledge.
Sunday’s results represented at least a partial affirmation of Merkel’s emphasis on Germany’s stability and economic prosperity at a time of upheaval elsewhere around the globe. They clear the way for her to extend her 12-year stewardship to 16, which would tie the record for post-war Germany.