Germany after the election
(VOV) - Chancellor Angela Merkel’s victory in Germany’s general election has demonstrated German voters’ confidence in Europe’s most powerful female leader.
However, she won’t have much time to enjoy her victory, as she is now getting down to work on forming a coalition government and resolving pending social issues.
Merkel’s first challenge is to find a partner to form a ruling coalition government. Preliminary results in all 299 constituencies show that her coalition of the Christian Democratic Union and its sister party, the Bavarian Christian Social Union (CSU), won a 41.5% plurality. However, the coalition gained just 311 of the 630 seats in parliament, not enough to form a new government.
The Free Democrats Party (FDP), Merkel’s other coalition partner, meanwhile, gained just 4.8% of the votes, less than the 5% required to join the parliament. Its unprecedented failure after half a century has made it difficult for Merkel to find a coalition partner and the negotiations needed to form a viable coalition are expected to be time-consuming.
Theoretically, Merkel can approach the Green Party or the Social Democratic Party (SPD) but both parties have indicated that they are not interested.
Merkel and her team will have to demonstrate strong negotiation skills to form a coalition without altering their campaign platform before the first session of parliament convenes on October 22.
Merkel’s second challenge is to continue resolving existing social issues, which include raising people’s incomes and stabilizing jobs. Germany now has the highest number of low-income earners in Europe and one-fourth of its workers have unstable jobs.
These problems, however, are not so serious because under Merkel’s rule, Germany has gained remarkable achievements. The economy grew by 0.7% in the second quarter of this year and the unemployment rate fell to 6.8%. The state budget will soon reach the target of rebalancing and Germany has survived the global financial crisis in good shape. Germany’s credit rating remains at AAA.
Merkel’s experience and success will allow her to continue pursuing her policies. She sees the upcoming difficulties as a goal to further success but her foremost task right now is to find a partner to form a coalition government.