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German Vote Puts Merkel Tantalizingly Close to a Majority
German Vote Puts Merkel Tantalizingly Close to a Majority
(about 3 hours later)
BERLIN — Chancellor Angela Merkel scored a stunning personal triumph in Germany’s national elections on Sunday, as voters handed her a clear validation of her leadership — and an all-but-certain third term — by giving her conservative party its best showing in 20 years, exit polls indicated.
BERLIN — Chancellor Angela Merkel scored a stunning personal triumph in Sunday’s national elections in Germany, becoming the only major leader to be re-elected twice since the financial crisis of 2008 and winning strong popular endorsement for her mix of austerity and solidarity in managing troubled Europe.
Projections from both main German television networks showed Ms. Merkel’s Christian Democrats, together with their sister party in Bavaria, tantalizingly close to an absolute majority, something no chancellor has achieved since Konrad Adenauer in 1957. Still, the projections indicated that Ms. Merkel would probably fall two or three seats short of that, and a poor showing for her coalition partner, the pro-business Free Democrats, meant that the chancellor would probably have to build a new coalition.
Although final vote tallies were not expected until Monday, the surprising show of strength for the chancellor and her center-right Christian Democrats — even their own polls had not suggested such a result — might just translate into an absolute majority, according to exit polls by both major German television stations. That is something no German chancellor has achieved since Konrad Adenauer in 1957.
That could result in more paralysis for Europe as German leaders engage in weeks of horse-trading to form what is likely to be a grand coalition with Ms. Merkel’s main opponents on the left, the Social Democrats, who did not perform as well as they had hoped Sunday and who may prove reluctant partners for fear of losing further luster in a government dominated by Ms. Merkel.
Ms. Merkel, 59 and a physicist raised in Communist East Germany, was unusually buoyant when she appeared before supporters, who chanted “Angie! Angie!” and gave her two whole minutes of applause at party headquarters. She exuberantly thanked voters, campaigners and her husband, the quantum chemist Joachim Sauer. Mr. Sauer, who tends to shun the limelight, stood at the side of the stage, acknowledging the jubilation of her fans.
President François Hollande of France congratulated the chancellor on “success in the federal election” and invited her to Paris as soon as possible — a clear indication of the eagerness with which Germany’s partners awaited the election result.
Later, during a raucous celebration at her party headquarters, Ms. Merkel clapped and sang along with the crowds but reminded them, “Tomorrow, we work.”
Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble, who with Ms. Merkel has guided Germany and thus Europe through the euro crisis, was swift to go on television and assure European partners that the government in Berlin would continue to play a leading role. But what no one knows is exactly how much fiscal and political unity a new Merkel government would want.
For all her success, it is not clear how Ms. Merkel will govern in her third four-year term. Her allies for the past four years, the business-minded Free Democrats, were expected to lose their place in Parliament, missing the 5 percent cutoff. And a narrow majority would be unstable — risking defeat in crucial parliamentary votes needed to pass more aid or credits for troubled economies.
For the moment, however, the strong showing left the chancellor and her party exuberant. Rarely has Ms. Merkel looked as buoyant as she did when she appeared onstage at her party headquarters after projections were announced. Her supporters wildly cheered “Angie! Angie!” and applauded solidly for two minutes, before she thanked party workers, particularly young volunteers, her campaign manager, aides in the chancellery and — most unusually — her husband, Joachim Sauer, a quantum chemist who generally shuns the limelight. He stood to the side of the stage, quietly acknowledging the jubilation of his wife’s supporters.
So the most likely course is that Ms. Merkel will enter a grand coalition with the No. 2 party nationally, the center-left Social Democrats.
“It was a super result,” Ms. Merkel said. “It is too early to say what we will do. We will discuss it tomorrow when we know the final result, but we can already celebrate tonight. Because we were great!”
In the past three years, the Social Democrats have given crucial support to Ms. Merkel in Parliament in passing credit lines and aid packages, tied to painful reforms, for euro-zone countries in need. But the center-leftists are likely to extract a high price in domestic reforms — a minimum wage, or social change — in exchange for joining a Merkel government in which they would be clearly the junior partner. Exit poll projections showed them with around 25 percent, far below their center-right rivals, whose vote totals are projected to be around 42 percent.
Projections tallied by the ARD public network and based on exit polls, which in Germany have previously proved exceptionally accurate, showed Ms. Merkel’s Christian Democrats winning more than 42 percent of the vote, a gain of about 8 percentage points from the previous election, followed by the Social Democrats with nearly 26 percent. An exultant Ursula von der Leyen, the employment minister, told German television, “this is our best result in 20 years.”
Ms. Merkel entered politics after the Berlin Wall fell in 1989. She is now widely viewed as the world’s most powerful woman, and set to overtake Margaret Thatcher as Europe’s longest-serving elected female leader.
The biggest surprise of the evening was the upstart, anti-euro Alternative for Germany party, which exit polls showed just shy of the 5 percent needed to enter into the lower house of Parliament. A classic protest party, it appeared to have drawn enough support from both the chancellor’s conservatives and the Free Democrats, possibly costing the latter their place in Parliament.
Her critics accuse her of lacking strategic vision, relying on tactical skills to survive, and ask why she has not used her power to write more history, both at home and in the unified Europe that is the source of Germany’s political and economic strength.
Projections from the exit polls showed the Free Democrats falling just short of the 5 percent hurdle, meaning they would be ousted from the lower house for the first time in postwar Germany, a crushing loss after having won nearly 15 percent four years ago.
“She has a technocratic understanding of Europe,” said Joschka Fischer, the former Greens leader and foreign minister from 1998 to 2005. But, he added, “Europe is not a scientific project.”
Mr. Schäuble, who with Ms. Merkel has guided Germany and to a large extent Europe through the euro crisis, told German television that Europe had no need to worry about Germany shirking its responsibility in the continent’s affairs.
The euro crisis, in this view, is about politics and sovereignty, and how much of the latter the 17 nations that use the euro, and the 11 others in the European Union, are prepared to abandon to make a success of their project.
“We will continue to play our part reliably,” he said, praising the bonds to a united Europe as the best thing his country has had in centuries.
Mr. Fischer sees Germany, and Europe, as stuck midway while crossing a river, unable to return to the riverbank they have left, but unable to get to the other side with Ms. Merkel as navigator.
Asked whether he would remain finance minister, Mr. Schäuble demurred, noting that many discussions lie ahead.
Other analysts suggested that neither the chancellor nor most Germans, who are conservative by nature and relish their position as the economic powerhouse of Europe, are prepared to shoulder such leadership.
Nearly 62 million eligible voters were called upon to determine the makeup of the next German Parliament. The race was closely watched abroad, given that Germany’s leadership role in Europe will influence the continent’s ability to shake its debt crisis and address the problems of chronic unemployment and sluggish growth. The next government in Berlin will also play a crucial role in completing the ambitious trade agreement between the European Union and the United States.
Sunday’s election outcome “is the safest course for a country like Germany,” Annette Heuser, executive director of the Bertelsmann Foundation, said in a telephone interview from Washington. The mentality, she said, is “Why rock the boat?”
On Saturday, Ms. Merkel wound up her campaign of countless interviews and almost 60 rallies nationwide since mid-August in her home district around Stralsund, a pretty medieval port on the Baltic Sea.
Yet the elections also hinted at more volatility in German politics, with the Greens, for example, tumbling from 20 percent-plus showings two years ago to less than 9 percent on Sunday. Most surprisingly, the Alternative for Germany, a protest party founded on an anti-euro platform, came from nowhere and nearly landed in Parliament, just missing the 5 percent hurdle.
Feisty and upbeat as she delivered her usual stump speech, the 59-year-old chancellor urged the crowd to vote not only for her as chancellor, but also to cast their second vote, which is for parties, in support of her Christian Democrats. .
Alternative party supporters who gathered in a Berlin hotel were euphoric, believing that they had administered a shock to the chancellor.
“By putting your cross there, you are doing something which will enable me to continue as your chancellor, which I really want to do,” she told a seafront crowd of hundreds.
“It will be noticed,” said Stefan Lindemann, a hotel director from Potsdam. “This will make Frau Merkel think about whether her Europe policy is the right one.”
“Tomorrow is your day,” she said, adding her voice to the many urging all eligible Germans to cast ballots, reflecting the emphasis on duty, as well as rights, in this post-Nazi, post-Communist democracy.
Franz Niggemann, who ran for the party in the Tempelhof-Schöneberg section of Berlin, said: “When you think that we were founded in February, it’s a fabulous result.”
Roughly a third of all voters described themselves as undecided just days before the election, adding to the uncertainty.
Germany’s European allies have been in suspense, waiting for the continent’s most important election this year. President François Hollande of France indicated how eager, even impatient, they are when he congratulated Ms. Merkel from Paris and invited her to visit as soon as possible. Prime Minister David Cameron of Britain, who hopes Ms. Merkel will supported his quest to claw back rights from Europe’s regulators in Brussels, posted his congratulations on Twitter, adding, “I’m looking forward to continuing to work closely with her.”
“Germany has had four good years,” Ms. Merkel said on Saturday, looking back on her second term, dominated by a robust economy and low unemployment, currently at 6.8 percent. “When we look around in Europe, we know that is anything but automatic.”
The next most pressing change on the European agenda is probably banking union, on which Germany has not pushed hard. Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble, who with Ms. Merkel has guided his country through the euro crisis, went on television Sunday night to assure European partners that Germany would continue to play its reliable part in the continent’s affairs, but mentioned no specifics.
The chancellor’s main challenger, Peer Steinbrück, 66, who was finance minister in her government from 2005-2009, has sought to cast her carefully weighed decision-making as plodding and her government with the Free Democrats as crippled by infighting.
Jan Techau, director of Carnegie Europe in Brussels, was in Germany for the election and said Sunday’s vote meant that it would be winter before Europe resumed any overhauls.
“In 28 hours you can get rid of them, you can get rid of the most backward-looking, incapable, loud-mouthed German government since reunification,” Mr. Steinbrück told a crowd of several thousand on Saturday in Frankfurt, the country’s financial capital and home to the European Central Bank. He has campaigned on closing the widening gap between Germany’s rich and poor by raising taxes on top earners and introducing a minimum wage.
While the chancellor has talked often of “more Europe,” lately she has shown little appetite for political restructuring that would require complex changes to the treaties that govern the European Union, Mr. Techau noted.
The Social Democrats’ preferred partners had been the Greens, but exit polls showed them also suffering losses to reach only about 8 percent support. That would mean that only by including the far-left Left party, formed in 2005 from the former East German Communist Party and western leftists who broke with the Social Democrats, would a left-leaning coalition be possible. Both center-left parties have repeatedly rejected a coalition with the Left, charging the party remains fractured by infighting and differences over policy.
Her major goal is “to get out of this crisis in one piece,” he said. “This muddling through can continue for a while.”
Should the chancellor seek a coalition with the Social Democrats, the negotiations are sure to be difficult and drawn out. Negotiations between the two parties took until the end of November in 2005, in forming her government that led until 2009.
Melissa
Eddy and Jack Ewing contributed reporting.
Alison Smale contributed reporting from Stralsund, Germany.
