German elections inconclusive
The chances of Angela Merkel becoming Germany's next chancellor suffered a setback yesterday when the Greens appeared to rule out joining a coalition with her conservative CDU party.
With the country in political gridlock after Sunday's inconclusive general election, speculation was growing last night that the chancellor, Gerhard Schr\ufffdder, would try to force new elections early next year.
Both Mrs Merkel and Mr Schr\ufffdder failed to win an outright majority for their parties in Sunday's election, which Mrs Merkel had been widely expected to win. Her CDU party got just 35.2% of the vote - one of its worst results ever, and far less than opinion polls had predicted. Mr Schr\ufffdder's Social Democrats won 34.3% of the vote.
Mrs Merkel's coalition partner, the FDP, won 9.9%, with the Greens on 8.1% and the recently formed Left party on 8.7%. Under Germany's constitution, the country's new parliament has to elect a new chancellor when it meets next month. But with Mrs Merkel unable to command a majority in the Bundestag, she is unlikely to win in a secret ballot of MPs.
After three rounds of voting, the country's president, Horst K\ufffdhler, could then invite her to form a minority centre-right government. But he is unlikely to invoke this option, which would almost certainly lead to the new government's swift demise and further humiliation for an already weakened Mrs Merkel. Instead, constitutional experts believe, Mr K\ufffdhler will dissolve parliament.
Until this happens, Mr Schr\ufffdder will carry on as chancellor until Germans go to the polls again, probably in January.
I don't know a whole lot about German government politics, but this is my understanding. The CDU got the single highest percent, so as the leader of the CDU, Merkel gets the first shot at forming a new government.
The CDU is a right leaning party* however and widely disliked by the left. And left leaning parties make up a bit over 50% of the parliment in whole. Thus there doesn't seem to be a way that Merkel can get a majority. However, because of divisions on the left and the desire to include the biggest party in the government, there doesn't seem to be a way to create a left alliance government either.
I don't know how this will play out, but I see two ways this could go. Either Schr\ufffdder and the Social Democrats will form a fragile left alliance government that won't last too long or there will be early elections do to the inability to form a government.
This is important here because A CDU government in Germany would lead to some significant changes in US/German relations. A CDU government would be much more friendly to Bush then the current government.
Jay
* By European standards. The whole chart is significantly to the left of the US chart. I don't know where the CDU would compare to US politics.