Merkel back on right track with favoured partner-party

Published on Sunday 27 September 2009 23:11

CHANCELLOR Angela Merkel is expected to be returned to power in Germany with the coalition party of her choice.

Her conservative CDU/CSU alliance and the business-friendly FDP party are thought to have won enough votes to form a power-sharing government for the next four years.

The narrow victory – exit polls said 48.5 per cent of the vote was for Mrs Merkel's party and the FDP – will spell an end to the uneasy coalition with the centre-left social democrats of the SPD.

Failure to win with the FDP would have entailed another coalition with the Left – which, said Der Spiegel newspaper, said would have been "the beginning of the end" for Mrs Merkel.

The SPD scored 22.5 per cent and the far-left "Linke" party 12.5 per cent. The Greens secured 10.5 per cent.

Mrs Merkel fought a low-key, dispirited campaign focused on her popular appeal with voters. It infuriated the Christian Democrat Union and its partner party, the Christian Social Union in Bavaria, with plotters preparing a coup had they been forced into a partnership with the SPD.

An alliance with the FDP gives Mrs Merkel more scope for business and tax reforms and keeping German troops in Afghanistan.

Voter turn-out was much lower than four years ago. Security was tight in the wake of a series of threatening messages from Islamic militants, including one from al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden, promising attacks on Germany if the people voted for an administration that vows to keep troops in Afghanistan.

The vote for the SPD was the worst in its post-war history, and a widespread purge of the leadership is expected this week.