Merkel savours mixed triumph
German leader in uphill fight despite historic win
wrote Nikolaus Blome in the top-selling Bild daily newspaper.
Ms Merkel’s conservative bloc stood at 41.5%, its strongest score since 1990 and just five seats short of the first absolute majority in the Bundestag lower house in over half a century.
The euro and German government bond futures rose early yesterday as investors anticipated continuity in Berlin’s cautious approach of seeking deficit cuts and economic reforms in return for support to euro zone weaklings.
The Social Democrats (SPD), with whom Ms Merkel ruled in a largely successful ‘‘grand coalition’’ in her first term from 2005 to 2009, finished second with 25.7%, little improved on their worst postwar result of 2009.
‘‘We have the mandate to lead the government under Angela Merkel for the next few years,’’ Environment Minister Peter Altmaier, a close Merkel ally, said on television.
‘‘What is important is that we get a stable majority,’’ he said, adding that the SPD and their Greens allies needed time to digest the results of their ‘‘painful defeat’’ before embarking on exploratory coalition talks. The Greens secured 8.4% — down sharply from 2009.
The only other party in the new Bundestag will be the hardline Left party, on 8.6%, after Ms Merkel’s current coalition partner, the business-friendly Free Democrats, failed to clear the 5% threshold to enter parliament.
After coming off worst in their previous coalition, the SPD will be loath to do a deal with Ms Merkel this time unless she pays a high price in terms of cabinet posts and policies.
During the campaign, the centre-left party argued for a national minimum wage and higher taxes on the wealthy — both opposed by Ms Merkel. The SPD may also demand the Finance Ministry, pushing out respected 71-year-old incumbent Wolfgang Schaeuble.
‘‘Given the issues that we set out and those that the CDU [Ms Merkel’s Christian Democrats] focused on in the campaign. . . [a grand coalition] is very, very difficult,’’ SPD vice-chairwoman BERLIN: German Chancellor Angela Merkel faces the daunting prospect of persuading her centre-left rivals to keep her in power after her conservatives notched up their best election result in more than two decades but fell short of an absolute majority.
Even her political foes acknowledged the chancellor was the big winner of the first German vote since the euro zone debt crisis began in 2010, thrusting the pastor’s daughter from East Germany into the role of Europe’s dominant leader.
Ms Merkel’s beaming face emblazoned the front pages of yesterday’s newspapers, which hailed the result as her personal victory.
‘‘It is HER triumph. . . It was not taxes, justice or the euro that were decisive but the question: whom do the citizens trust to act in the chancellor’s office with calm reason and good nerves?’’ Manuela Schwesig told RBB-Inforadio.
SPD chairman Sigmar Gabriel did not categorically rule out entering talks with Ms Merkel, but signalled that his party, which lost millions of supporters during the last ‘‘grand coalition’’, would not roll over.
If the party does decide to enter coalition talks with Ms Merkel, experts predict they could last months and be the most difficult in the postwar era.
That could keep key European decisions on the next stage in a banking union and further financial support for Greece and possibly Portugal on hold.
The Alternative for Germany, a new eurosceptic party that had threatened to spoil Ms Merkel’s victory by breaking into parliament for the first time, finished just short of the 5% threshold required to win seats.
The movement’s hostility to euro zone bailouts and call to cut weaker southern members loose from the currency area resonated with many crisis-weary voters and may act as a brake on Ms Merkel’s conduct of European policy.