Alice Weidel, the leader of the Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, didn’t mince her words. Speaking immediately after the German federal election on national television in Berlin on what’s known as ‘the leaders round’, she claimed that the mainstream conservative Christian Democrats (CDU) merely won a ‘pyrrhic victory’. Its head, Friedrich Merz, had no real choice, Weidel said, but to form a coalition with her radical right party (which scored over 20 per cent of the vote). A three- party coalition, she added, would be ‘a millstone around Merz’s neck’.
The AfD will enjoy the luxury of being able to criticise any new government at will
Merz was having none of it. The likely next chancellor of Germany responded that a coalition with Weidel is ‘absolutely excluded’. Alas, Merz did not win a mandate. At just less than 30 per cent, the Christian Democrats in combination with their sister party, the Christian Social Union (CSU), which governs – or, if you prefer, rules – Bavaria, scored just well enough to form a coalition with the Social Democrat party (SDP).
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