Merkel’s man to push coalition

LOBBYING FOR SUPPORT FROM OTHER PARTIES Steinmeier might be chancellor’s best hope of holding onto power in Germany.

Frank-Walter Steinmeier was hardly Chancellor Angela Merkel’s first choice for the largely ceremonial job of German president, but the lifelong Social Democrat may be her best hope of holding onto power amid an unprecedented political crisis.

Steinmeier, 61, a two-time foreign minister, on Tuesday met political leaders from the Greens and pro-business Free Democrats (FDP) after Merkel’s bid to forge a three-way coalition with those parties collapsed.

Yesterday, he met Horst Seehofer, head of the Bavarian sister party of Merkel’s conservatives.

Today, he is scheduled to meet Martin Schulz, head of the Social Democratic Party (SDP), the second largest in the Bundestag lower house of parliament, to urge him to reconsider his party’s rejection of another “grand coalition” with Merkel’s conservatives for the good of the country.

About 30 of the SPD’s 153 parliamentary members questioned the rejection of such a coalition this week, Bild newspaper reported yesterday. It said Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel also favoured resuming the coalition that has ruled for the past four years.

Merkel favours new elections over a minority government, but Steinmeier is pressing political leaders to avoid a new poll that experts say would further strengthen the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) after it moved into parliament with nearly 13% of the vote on September 24.

“The German president, who is now as powerful as seldom seen in German constitutional history, holds the reins,” the Rheinische Post newspaper wrote on Tuesday.

This is the first time a German president has had to get actively involved in trying to forge a new coalition government.

The architects of the German constitution devised a complicated process to prevent the frequent elections that weakened the Weimar Republic in the 1920s and facilitated the rise of Adolf Hitler.

But new elections are likely around April if Steinmeier cannot bring Merkel’s conservatives, the Greens and FDP back to the negotiating table, or persuade his former SPD colleagues to return to government. –