How did she do it? How has Angela Merkel hung on for a fourth term as German Chancellor after being written off so many times? When she’s sworn in as Bundeskanzlerin today it’ll be nearly thirteen years since she became leader of the Bundesrepublik. She’s been read the last rites so often, yet after almost six months of backroom talks she’s back in office. But is she really back in power?
Merkel has promised Germany ‘a grand coalition for the little people.’ It’s a catchy catchphrase but can she deliver? Yet another cosy alliance between her centre right CDU and the soft left SPD hardly feels like a new beginning for the millions of voters who deserted the two big parties at last September’s election. Both parties recorded their worst results since the war – 32 per cent for the CDU, 20.5 per cent for the SPD – yet they’re back together again, in a marriage of convenience that neither party really wanted.
Merkel would have preferred a triple alliance with the Green Party and the business friendly Free Democrats.
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