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| Version 1 | Version 2 |
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| Angela Merkel Reaches Deal to Form Coalition Government in Germany | Angela Merkel Reaches Deal to Form Coalition Government in Germany |
| (about 3 hours later) | |
| BERLIN — Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany agreed on a coalition deal on Wednesday with her previous governing partners, including the Social Democrats, bringing her within striking distance of forming a new government and ending five months of political limbo, according to party officials. | BERLIN — Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany agreed on a coalition deal on Wednesday with her previous governing partners, including the Social Democrats, bringing her within striking distance of forming a new government and ending five months of political limbo, according to party officials. |
| Nearly half a million registered members of the center-left Social Democratic Party, many of whom oppose joining another administration led by Ms. Merkel, will get the final say; The deal is contingent on their approval in a postal vote that analysts say is too close to call. The results of the vote are expected by March 4. | |
| The Social Democrats are likely to occupy the powerful Foreign and Finance Ministries, a first for a junior coalition party, leading political analysts to agree that they had done well in negotiations with Ms. Merkel’s conservative Christian Democrats and their sister party, the Bavarian Christian Union. The Social Democratic leadership now has to convince party members that it wrung enough hard-fought concessions to justify entering into another coalition government, rather than leading the opposition. | |
| “I feel like we negotiated well, if it did drag on a bit,” Hubertus Heil, who until last year was the secretary general of the Social Democrats, told journalists. “We made progress in many areas that will make people’s lives better.” | |
| Details of the coalition agreement will be announced later on Wednesday, and if the deal is ratified by the Social Democrats, a new government could begin work by the end of March. | |
| The Christian Democrats spent the last two weeks negotiating a governing pact with the Bavarian party and the Social Democrats, led by Martin Schulz. If the members of the Social Democratic Party reject the deal, the country could face more uncertainty and the prospect of a snap election. | |
| In elections in September, both the Christian Democrats and the Social Democrats, long the two dominant parties in Germany, lost ground, while the far-right Alternative for Germany surged, becoming the first far-right party in generations to win seats in Parliament. The Christian Democrats and Bavarian Christian Union won a total of 246 seats out of 709, while the Social Democrats won 153, giving their proposed coalition 399 seats. Alternative for Germany won 92 seats. | |
| Many Social Democrats argue that being in a coalition with Ms. Merkel is moving their party to the right and eroding its identity, and that entering a new coalition would leave Alternative for Germany as the leading voice of opposition. | |
| Mr. Schulz, who led the Social Democrats to the polls last year, is to hand the party leadership to Andrea Nahles, the minister of Labor and Social affairs in the last government, the German news media is reporting. Ms. Nahles is relatively young, 47, and more closely identified with the party’s left wing. |