Germany is embarking on a potentially lengthy search for its next government after the center-left Social Democrats narrowly beat outgoing Chancellor Angela Merkel’s center-right bloc in an election that failed to set a clear direction for Europe’s biggest economy under a new leader.
Leaders of the parties in the newly elected parliament were meeting Monday to digest a result that saw Merkel’s Union bloc slump to its worst-ever result in a national election, and appeared to put the keys to power in the hands of two opposition parties.
Both Social Democrat Olaf Scholz, who pulled his party out of a years-long slump, and Armin Laschet, the candidate of Merkel’s party who saw his party’s fortunes decline in a troubled campaign, laid a claim to leading the next government. Scholz is the outgoing vice chancellor and finance minister and Laschet is the governor of Germany’s most populous state, North Rhine-Westphalia.
Whichever of them becomes chancellor will do so with his party having won a smaller share of the vote than any of his predecessors. Who gets the job looks likely to depend on the decision of the prospective junior partners, the environmentalist Greens and the business-friendly Free Democrats — parties that traditionally belong to rival ideological camps.
“Voters have spoken very clearly,” Scholz said Monday. “They strengthened three parties — the Social Democrats, the Greens and the Free Democrats — so this is the visible mandate the citizens of this country have given: these three parties should lead the next government.”
The only other option that would have a parliamentary majority is a repeat of the “grand coalition” of the Union and Social Democrats. That is the grouping that has run Germany for 12 years of Merkel’s 16-year tenure and has often been marred by squabbling, but this time it would be under Scholz’s leadership with Merkel’s bloc as junior partner. There is little appetite for that, however.
Scholz said the Union “received the message from citizens that they should no longer be in government, but go into opposition.”
Merkel’s outgoing government will remain in office until a successor is sworn in, a process that can take weeks or months. Merkel announced in 2018 that she wouldn’t seek a fifth term.
The Greens traditionally lean toward the Social Democrats and the Free Democrats toward the Union, but neither ruled out going the other way on Sunday night. The Greens made significant gains in the election to finish third but fell far short of their original aim of taking the chancellery, while the Free Democrats improved slightly on a good result from 2017.
Julia Reuschenbach, a political analyst at the University of Bonn, told ARD television that a Laschet-led government “isn’t excluded in principle,” though the Social Democrats will push the argument that the result shows Germans want them to lead the new administration. “Ultimately, the parties will of course have to agree on matters of substance,” she said.
Final official results gave the Social Democrats 25.7% of the vote and the Union 24.1%. Four years ago, they won 20.5% and 32.9% respectively. The Union — made up of Laschet’s Christian Democratic Union and its Bavarian sister, the Christian Social Union — had never previously polled below 31% in a national parliamentary election.
The Greens took 14.8%, the Free Democrats 11.5% and the far-right Alternative for Germany 10.3% — a decline from the 12.6% it took to enter parliament for the first time in 2017. The smallest party in the new parliament is the Left Party, which won just 4.9% of the vote.
The new Bundestag, or lower house of parliament, will have a record 735 lawmakers. The parliament varies in size because of a peculiarity of Germany’s electoral system, which means that it can be considerably bigger than the minimum 598 seats.
The Social Democrats took 206 seats, the Union 196, the Greens 118, the Free Democrats 92, Alternative for Germany 83 and the Left Party 39. One seat went to the Danish minority party SSW, which will be represented for the first time in decades.
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28 sept 2018 news
German Chancellor Angela Merkel announced on Monday that she would not seek re-election when her term expires in 2021.
Merkel, who has been Chancellor since 2005, made the announcement during a news conference today in Berlin.
“It is time today for me to start a new chapter,” Merkel told reporters in Berlin.
“This fourth term is my last term as Chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany. In the next Bundestag election in 2021, I will not run again as Chancellor. I will not run for the German Bundestag any more, and I do not want any other political office.”
Merkel told reporters that being Chancellor has been a “very challenging and fulfilling task.”
Merkel’s decision appears to mark the beginning of the end of her 13-year dominance of European politics.
Merkel also announced on Monday that she would stand down from the chairmanship of her center-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU) party after 18 years in the post.
She said that she’s known since the summer break that she no longer wanted to be the CDU chairman and that during the party’s conference in December she will not run again for the position.
The announcement is a sign of Merkel’s weakened power within her own party, and waning popularity in the country.
Both parties under Merkel’s ruling coalition — the CDU and the Social Democratic Party (SPD) — suffered heavy losses in a regional election over the weekend.
While the CDU remained the largest party in the election, which was held in the central state of Hesse, its vote was down 10% from the previous election.
